Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kelly Schwartz. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Kelly, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.
About mid-year during 2019, my husband and I decided that we need to trade in our Subaru Crosstrek for something a little bigger. Between two adults, two kids, and just one dog at the time, the size of the Crosstrek became a little snug and we started looking at vehicles with third r0w options. We walked off the Elk Grove Toyota lot one day with a used, 2016 Toyota 4runner and became quickly excited at the possibilities of a larger vehicle and a third-row option. We had no idea the route we would end up taking about a year or so with this vehicle, especially as we navigated Covid lockdowns quickly after in 2020.
As everyone navigated the bizarre nature of Covid lockdowns, our family leaned more and more towards getting outdoors and in ways that didn’t involve large crowds. My husband’s work is in Wireless Internet so he could work mostly remote, and my career in the Army Reserve was slowly winding down, also being 90% remote until mid 2021. My life trajectory quickly sent me down a path of making that Toyota 4Runner my entire personality during those years. It took a few months to create an Instagram page, then I began following tons of other Toyota and 4runner pages to get inspiration. We started camping as a family more and more often, as well as going to other meetups and connecting with a community called Overland Bound in the East Bay Area of Northern California.
This was about the same time that the group, LadyOwnedToyotas was formed, and we started social meetups in our local areas for other women who owned Toyotas. This is mostly where I had the opportunity to learn how to off-road in my SUV while connecting with other women who enjoyed doing the same thing. I finished my second enlist in the Army Reserve at the time, wrapping up a 13 year-long career. As a veteran, off-roading had a lot of crossovers to activities we did out in the field, so these social meetups served as a way to connect again with a community of like-minded people.
This is also about the time I learned about the Rebelle Rally. The Rebelle Rally is considered the longest off-road rally competition in the United States, and it just so happens to only be for women. The course is also made and built around the stock manufactured vehicle in your driveway. Enter- my Toyota 4Runner being my entire personality.
Off-roading is also arguably the most expensive hobby I’ve ever stumbled across and sought out. Anyone that has ever dabbled in off-roading can tell you things add up fast. This made it a huge financial risk overall to compete, but from all the research I did in forums, crowd funding and the potential of sponsorships made it seem possible. However, it had zero to do with my career development or lack thereof. This wasn’t a job that paid out money, this was just an expensive h0bby that tested the limits of my mind and skills in ways that I craved. After leaving my Army unit in 2021, I felt empty and without purpose, but I knew this was something I was capable of accomplishing as soon as I came across the Rebelle Rally website.
When I took this risk to sign up to compete, it was in January 2023 without a chosen teammate yet. I was willing to lay it all down for a chance to compete in the 2023 Rebelle Rally. In February of that year, I started training for the rally, traveling from Northern California all the way to places like the Imperial Sand Dunes near the border of Mexico. I kept my feelers out for a teammate, since it was a navigation-based team event. This wasn’t a competition I could accomplish on my own.
By April I had secured a teammate that had fully committed, and from there we crowd sourced, fundraised in every way imaginable, and even reached out to companies in the off-road industry for sponsorships and product support to have a successful rookie year for the 2023 Rebelle Rally. We had an amazing team of companies back us for the rally that year, and we couldn’t have been successful without them.
The Rebelle Rally competition takes place in October every year, so by the end of September we had already raised around $15k for our registration fee and the mechanical costs it took to get my 4runner in the best shape possible. We were preparing to drive about 1100 kms across California and Nevada forests, deserts, and mountain landscapes- using only a compass, a map, and the tools to be used with them. No GPS.
It was a huge risk for both my teammate and I, especially financially, to dive into the competition world of off-roading, but we both are ready to do it all over again. We proved that this bucket list goal for us was attainable so there is no stopping us from doing it again. It was one of those experiences that taught you so much about yourself in such a compounded amount of time, it can take you months, and sometimes years to process.
I’m excited for my teammate to have the opportunity to compete again in 2025, and I’m personally preparing for the 2026 edition of the Rebelle Rally, a year after.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My role in my local community is considered an off-road ambassador. I’m specifically an ambassador for a social group for women called LadyOwnedToyotas in the Northern California region. The online presence of this group includes a Facebook group that serves as a forum for women that own Toyotas, and on Instagram account where they repost pictures of women who tag LadyOwnedToyotas on the app. I believe they are on TikTok as well, I’m just not on there myself.
In several different regions of the US, there are a few women per region who have agreed to step up as volunteer, regional ambassadors. I personally have stepped up as an ambassador in the NorCal area, as well as a few other members spread across the Northern California area since it’s such a widespread area.
Our mission as ambassadors is to put on as many meet-ups as our region craves, and we as volunteers have time for ourselves. We have a pretty amazing group in NorCal that shows up to a lot of events we put on, so we are super lucky for that!
We put on meetups that range from 4×4 park get togethers, trail outings, or even just social meetups where we all get together and talk about the cool things we’ve changed on our rigs in the last few months, or just catch-up on life.
These meet-ups are designed to always be family friendly, since we’ve become one big family through this group ourselves.
My own personal mission as a female off-road ambassador, is to empower my fellow females to use their vehicle the way it’s meant to and feel confident behind the wheel doing so. We like covering basics, like how to use all the buttons in your vehicle that look funky, and engage low gears and try new things. My biggest rule is that it’s in a safe and welcoming environment!
I will do social media posts on my own Instagram and personal Facebook page, for any of these meetups planned throughout the year, I love to connect with as many LadyOwnedToyotas members in the area as possible. I can’t name a time when we haven’t had a blast, even in the rain!
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
When learning my own management style, a lesson I’ve truly had to unlearn was the expectation that I was going to be everyone’s favorite person. Becoming everyone’s “go to” person in my life had always been my style. I loved helping and coaching others, and I always appreciated when people reached out to me for help or questions. This often-left little room for attending to my own problems within my career or life.
When I reached levels of management within my time in education or within my 13-year military career, I constantly overthought how I was able to keep everyone happy in my own management techniques and ensure I was the most effective leader as possible through this way.
Instead of focusing on daily problem solving and only solving what was within my control as a human, I often focused too hard on being everyone else’s magical problem solver and worried that I was excepted and well-liked by my peers.
The lesson that I had to really unlearn when interacting with many different human beings over several decades now, is that you aren’t going to vibe and speak the same styles of communication as everyone that you work with. It’s your job as a decent human being to attempt to work on your communication style if it seems like you really aren’t conveying your message properly. Beyond that, it’s also important to hold firm to your own beliefs, values, and your own personal strengths.
Before I agree to filling my schedule with activities, people, events, are work are do my best to ask myself if this opportunity aligns with who I am as a person. If that’s not the case, I’m giving myself permission to move on.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
I’ve found myself in my 36th year of life now, and while I have many stories of resilience throughout all those years, I’ll give the very scared teenage version of myself the most credit with this question.
I will preface and give my parents amazing credit for raising us the way my sister and I were. We lived in a beautiful, rural community in Northern California. We were often sheltered from high crime areas, taken out to the forest with our family regularly for outdoor activities, and lived a comfortable middleclass life in the Sierra Foothills. They helped my sister and me get set-up for community college, encouraged us to hold jobs, and always offered a roof over our heads if we needed it.
Around when I turned 18, I thought a lot about how I was going to set myself up for life, and the route I chose to earn my way through my early adult hood included joining the military about two weeks before 19th birthday. I wanted to do my part to secure financial funding for higher education, and I felt like at the time it guaranteed my success and career possibilities in the future. I went down the path of enlisting in the United States Army Reserves just before turning 19 and would begin Basic Combat Training (BCT) across the country in just a short, 6 months.
During those 6 months- my mom and I would soon move out of our family own as she ended her own 20+ year marriage with my dad; I would live with enough possessions at some point that they could all fit in a laundry basket; I would float from my mom’s temporary rental situation to my boyfriends since I didn’t really have a permanent place to live before I left for BCT; I would re-pierce my nose out rebellion to have it for 6 more months before shipping off; I would be traveling back and forth from the hospital, often as my mom was very much not okay during that year; I would drop a full semester of college classes because I couldn’t keep up with two jobs and driving back and forth from the hospital; and my plan to wean off my anti-depressants for that 6 months before leaving for BCT ended up turning into a quick and accidental cold turkey situation.
To say those six months were a bit much, for me personally would be a slight understatement.
The following six months involved completing both Basic Combat Training (or what is nicknamed Boot Camp) and the Army requirement of AIT, which includes the personalized schooling for our own individual jobs we signed up for. For some frame of reference of my progression over those 6 months, I started my BCT experience maybe only being able to do 3-4 push-ups. The first two miles I attempted was over 20+ minutes, and I was one of the least in shape females at the beginning. Each week during BCT it became physically harder, we marched for longer, our ruck sacks became heavier as our ruck marches became longer. I watched females drop out medically because of hip and knee fractures, and suffered the worst tendinitis situations that I can remember ever having. Each day was only about one thing, not quitting. I don’t know when my mind shifted, or how I even got through sometimes, but I decided at some point that quitting just wasn’t an option. By the end of my AIT school, I was moving up in my class and began testing above average on most of the fitness testing. I graduated and joined my Army Reserve Unit just before my 20th birthday.
Those were some of the longest days that never seemed to end, sometimes one day bleeding into three or four. Yet I like to believe that the resilience I gained during that year set me up for the moments of resilience I’ve experienced later on in life.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theoverlandlifter/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kiloschwartz
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@schmacadventures684
Image Credits
Jasmine Miller Photos