Meet the Cornerstone Advisors: Biama Charles

At Cornerstone Safety Group, we’re honored to have industry leaders as our advisors and thought partners. Our advisors across a wide array of disciplines provide perspective, guidance, and industry insights to our staff and members.

Throughout this blog series, we’ll be introducing some of our advisors and learning more about how the travel industry captured their attention.

This March, meet Biama Charles!

Tell us about how you began in your industry and your connection to your specialty. 

I was born in New York to immigrant parents who are from the beautiful Caribbean island of Grenada. From a young age, they instilled in me that education should always be put first as it was the key to open all doors of opportunity. 

As a kid, I loved reading books to my robust collection of Barbies - it was my true honor to serve them as their librarian and teacher. Naturally, when the time came for me to decide what I would study in college, I decided on becoming a teacher. 

Upon enrolling at SUNY College at Old Westbury, I decided to become a double major in English and Spanish education, intent on becoming a high school ESL teacher. In my junior year, when the opportunity came to go to Spain for an immersive semester abroad, I declined a full scholarship and decided not to go - the fear of too much unknown took hold of me. The decision to not go on that study abroad trip to Spain still haunts me and is to date, one of my biggest regrets in life. Ultimately, I ended up graduating as an English Education major with a minor in Spanish. 

Feeling despondent that my initial plans didn’t align the way I intended, I turned to my mentor at the time and asked her for guidance on what else I might pursue after graduation. Since she had recognized my passion for program development and student engagement, my mentor encouraged me to pursue a masters degree in higher education administration. 

I got accepted to the Higher Education Administration program at Stony Brook University. In my last semester of graduate school, I transitioned to finish the program as an online student to take my first professional job in North Carolina. After the most transformative year of my life in North Carolina, I moved back up north to Binghamton University and then to Hartwick College, where I am still employed.

After years working in college housing and residential services, I made the leap out of that sector and into the diversity, equity and inclusion realm in 2020. Throughout my career, I always had a knack for creating inclusive programs and felt an innate sense of joy working closely with diverse populations, so this felt like the perfect time to dedicate my time fully to this work.

Why did you decide to be an advisor to Cornerstone and how do you hope to serve our members?

My life experience has taught me that we are all navigating this complex world with different perspectives based on reality, personal upbringing, environment, lived experiences, ignorance, biases, as well as journalistic and social media influences. 

I decided to join Cornerstone as an advisor to provide my perspective, which is not one the world often appreciates or likes to consider. I think about my younger college self and who I needed back then to provide encouragement and transparency that would have led me to go on that life changing experience in Spain. If the college counselors back then took the time and knew how to intentionally encourage me to see past the fear and recognize the golden opportunity in front of me, certain aspects of my lived experience would have certainly been different. 

I needed Cornerstone members back then to fill this gap. So if I can be a part of this amazing consulting group, whose mission is to provide services and strategies to make travel and experiential service organizations better, that’s where I belong. I want to ensure present and future students have the keys to such opportunities and use them.

How do you see Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work incorporated in the travel and experiential education industry? What could the industry be doing better?

DEI should be embedded in the infrastructure of the travel and experiential education industry. The industry is slowly coming to this realization, which is a good start, but now program providers must do the work to celebrate diversity in all of its forms. They must implement inclusive practices which show care and consideration for all, in an effort to create a sense of belonging amongst those who never imagined these experiences as part of their life’s journey. 

Industry professionals shouldn’t be afraid to dig deep, research, explore, and uncover the real truths that have impacted the current state of our country and other countries their programs visit. Be willing to step into the discomfort to continue to broaden individual and organizational perspectives. Acknowledge the “elephant in the room” proactively on organizational websites, when meeting with prospective travelers, and while on trips. People will appreciate the experiential part of their experience much more when they are able to learn and unlearn certain truths. 

Global travel is returning, and as it does, Cornerstone Safety Group members will be ready.