Real teams. Real Results.
We’ve helped teams across industries grow their leadership capacity. Here are some of their stories.
Case Studies
See how organizations like yours have built leadership capacity, aligned culture, and delivered measurable growth with Cairn.
Lighthouse Electric Company
Client Background
Lighthouse Eletric Company is a family-owned business in the process of transitioning to an employee-owned structure with growth goals of reaching $1 billion in revenue over the next three years.
Key Challenges
As the company prepared for rapid expansion and a shift in ownership, the leadership team faced several pressing challenges:
- Navigating uncertainty during a time of significant change.
- Identifying the cultural foundation that would sustain growth.
- Ensuring alignment and confidence across leaders as the organization scaled.
Desired Outcomes
Lighthouse Electric sought guidance to successfully manage its transition to employee ownership while preparing for rapid growth. The leadership team wanted a clear path forward that would strengthen alignment, sustain their culture, and support their long-term vision.
Our Strategy
We began with a comprehensive site visit and in-depth leadership assessment to identify growth opportunities. Through this process, a lack of clarity and alignment around the company’s vision and core values emerged as a central challenge.
To address this, our guides designed an experiential program in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania. Using whitewater rafting and rock climbing as the backdrop, the leadership team explored values and principles in real time. Facilitated discussions connected their experiences to the way they operate as a company, offering powerful, immediate examples of their values in action. Post-event executive coaching sessions reinforced these insights, ensuring actionable strategies for long-term success.
Key Services Provided
-
On-site visit and meeting observation
-
In-depth leadership assessment, interviews, and full team assessment report
-
Customized training experience including camping, rafting, climbing, and biking in Ohiopyle
-
Post-event executive coaching
United States Naval Academy
Client Background
The Stockdale Fellowship offers a yearlong professional development program for a select cohort of U.S. Naval Academy staff and professors. The fellowship emphasizes personal growth, leadership excellence, and the development of skills that extend beyond the classroom.
Key Challenges
The fellowship team wanted to:
- Integrate experiential leadership development into an already rigorous academic program.
- Reinforce classroom learning with real-world practice.
- Provide participants with opportunities to strengthen self-awareness, empathy, and their ability to foster high-performing cultures.
Desired Outcomes
The client sought three customized experiences that directly supported the cohort’s learning outcomes and aligned with the fellowship’s overarching goals.
Our Strategy
We began with a detailed program assessment to understand the individual needs of each participant as well as the overall learning arc of the fellowship. From there, we designed a series of outdoor leadership experiences in New Hampshire and Virginia involving ice climbing, mountaineering, rafting, backpacking, and rappelling.
Each experience was intentionally crafted to connect back to classroom themes—ranging from emotional awareness to empathy and building high-performance cultures. Our team guided reflection and dialogue, ensuring participants could draw direct connections between their field experiences and their leadership development journey.
Key Services Provided
-
Program assessment and comprehensive report
-
Core values assessments
-
Custom experience design and delivery
-
Ongoing leadership coaching
Flagship Pioneering
Client Background
Flagship Pioneering’s Summit PBU is dedicated to solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges through scientific inquiry and innovation.
Key Challenges
While a culture of excellence is a strength, it can also create challenges:
- The demanding pace puts the team at risk of burnout.
- Limited time for meaningful connection leaves relationships feeling strained.
- Trust and openness can be threatened by the constant pressure to deliver.
Desired Outcomes
The client wanted strategies and systems to prevent burnout, strengthen trust, and sustain high performance without losing cadence in their fast-paced environment.
Our Strategy
We began with a thorough assessment to understand the team’s dynamics. The findings revealed that while individuals genuinely cared for their other team members, the compressed time available for interaction made it difficult for that care to be felt.
To address this, we introduced new meeting strategies and shared “keywords” that encouraged feedback and created safe space for dissent. These tools gave the team practical ways to communicate openly and strengthen trust. We complemented this with individual coaching and an implementation assessment to provide accountability and ensure lasting change.
Finally, a follow-up onsite event brought the team back together to reinforce progress and maintain momentum.
Key Services Provided
-
Program assessment and comprehensive report
-
Custom experience design and delivery
-
Ongoing leadership coaching
-
Strategy Implementation assessment
-
Follow-up onsite team event to continue momentum
Keel Point
Client Background
Keel Point is a independent financial services firm based in Alabama, offering high-end financial solutions to its clients.
Key Challenges
As Keel Point looked ahead to its next generation of leaders, the organization needed to:
- Prepare participants in an internal leadership program for transition into executive roles.
- Strengthen both individual leadership capacity and team collaboration.
- Build confidence in the team’s ability to step into expanded responsibilities.
Desired Outcomes
The client wanted to cultivate camaraderie among the leadership cohort while equipping each participant with the skills necessary to become part of the company’s future executive team.
Our Strategy
Our assessment revealed that the group was already a tight-knit team, eager to deepen their collaboration and elevate their leadership capabilities. To build on that foundation, our guides designed a two-day sea kayaking expedition along the coast of Catalina.
Throughout the journey, facilitated discussions and exercises focused on key skills such as emotional intelligence, effective team design, and clear communication. These experiential moments were reinforced with executive coaching, helping participants apply lessons directly to their transition into new leadership roles.
Key Services Provided
-
Program assessment and comprehensive report
-
Custom experience design and delivery
-
Executive coaching
Hunter Industries
Client Background
Hunter Industries is a global provider of industrial and commercial irrigation and lighting systems with a reputation for innovation.
Key Challenges
Hunter Industries faced organizational challenges that were slowing progress:
- Sales and marketing teams were operating in silos.
- Misaligned processes created friction and inefficiencies.
- A lack of cross-department collaboration hindered unified strategy and execution.
Desired Outcomes
The client wanted to build a unified sales and marketing leadership team capable of working seamlessly together, eliminating friction and aligning processes for greater efficiency.
Our Strategy
We designed a three-day backpacking expedition in Havasupai Falls to bring sales and marketing leaders out of their day-to-day environment. On the trail, our guides facilitated core values conversations, helped surface key challenges, and used design thinking practices to generate practical solutions for collaboration.
Following the experience, post-event coaching supported leaders as they implemented new processes and held themselves accountable to the commitments they made on the trail.
Key Services Provided
-
Program assessment and comprehensive report
-
Custom experience design and delivery
-
Ongoing executive coaching
Client Highlights
Trusted feedback from teams across industries.
We hired Cairn Leadership Strategies to faciliate a day hike for our part-time MBA leadership fellows at Johns Hopkins. Knight and Tyler were amazing. Their knowledge, passion and care for teaching/coaching professionals through adventure in the outdoors is inspiring and truly impactful. Their approach works and made a real difference for our adult learners. The facilitated discussions on the trail and afterwards provided them with great tools and resources for leading themselves and others. Highly Recommend!
Knight, Tyler, and Bob organized a world-class retreat for our team of scientific entrepreneurs in the White Mountains of NH. From the planning and team diagnostics, to the expertly led discussions around values and trust, to the fabulously cooked healthy meals, the experience was unlike any offsite I’ve ever planned or attended. We had a tentative goal of summiting Mount Washington, but the weather was not in our favor that day. Knight and his team expertly navigated safety considerations and helped us…
The Cairn Team is a class act, top tier group of leaders that delivers unforgettable experiential training for executives and managers alike with a unique, proven method in the best classroom of all – the great outdoors. Across my 23 years of military leadership schools and multiple NOLS, AAC and AMGA courses – Cairn sits top of its class in innovative, effective methods to best build our most important resource: human capital. I’ve seen this well-informed, talented team in action for nearly 8 years at various locations…
Amazing time with Cairn Leadership in the White Mountains. They guided us through ice climbing, gear acclimatization, and summiting Mt. Washington in the snow. Even more fulfilling was their leadership teaching they did every step of the way while adventuring and in leadership sessions. They were able to get us to cut right to the core of leadership issues and weaknesses we have so that we could identify, discuss, and talk about ways in which we can improve. It was impressive how transformative just a…
[My] 2nd trip was May – Shenandoah, VA backpacking, camping, rafting experience. This trip was longer and provided even more tremendous opportunities to learn and grow. This group runs a perfectly balanced trip of challenges, physical demands, deep reflections, guided discovery, and lets not forget…a ton of fun. Memories for lifetime. Changes for today. 100% recommend.
Awesome experience with Cairn Leadership out on Mount Baker. The outdoors is one of the best natural leadership learning environments! Combine that with how Knight and Jude facilitated and integrated the leadership and life lessons on teams, emotional intelligence and systems thinking – it really made for an impactful weekend. Looking forward to applying these lessons in life and business!
Cairn Leadership led a leadership hike in San Diego focused around time and energy management. Knight and Tyler did a great job building a learning environment by leveraging the outdoors and facilitated discussion with other attendees. I was able to create relationships through meaningful self reflection and discussion that is applicable to my professional and personal development.
Great leadership program! I learned a lot about decision making, team building, coaching, etc., during outdoor experiential events. Everything I learned can be applied to my job, my role as a hockey coach & my personal life. And everyone in the Cairn leadership team was incredibly knowledgeable about what they teach and great people!
