Jason Kracht - For Adult Service to Orca Lodge

Jason was inducted into the Order in 1990 at the end of the OA 75th anniversary year. As a youth in Montana, he served in various chapter, lodge and section positions. In this time he worked toward greater unity of Apoxky Aio, which still was experiencing merger pains 20 years after the fact.

In the fall of 1998, he became a member of Orca Lodge, and has been active ever since. His support of Orca has helped to make the lodge more effective in its service to the units and districts of the Redwood Empire Council. His commitment to the OA was highlighted by his Wood Badge ticket, with many of his ticket items geared toward supporting his Lodge.

Jason has served as an Associate Lodge Adviser for 3 different Lodge Advisers, working on ceremonies development, and enhancing the administrative functions of the Lodge. In addition to his lodge roles, he serves the national OA program, having staffed 5 NOAC’s, 1 Jamboree, ArrowCorps5, and SummitCorps.

Locally Jason supports the Section W-3N OA programs, having served as a Conclave site Coordinator in 2005, and working actively in OA High Adventure promotions at Conclaves since. He is also responsible for the development and execution of a unique Section Conclave scuba program. The untested nature of this program meant great effort on Jason's part. However the success of his program has seen itself repeated at 2 more Conclaves, and he has been asked to serve as Scuba Coordinator for the 2012 and 2015 NOACs.

In 2012, our Lodge went through reorganization, with 1/3 of the membership being reallocated to Crater Lake Council. Suddenly, Orca had to revise our youth leadership. This required balancing Lodge continuity, with the development of our officers. Jason worked closely with our Lodge Adviser and Staff Adviser to help these new officers run the Lodge. While during our first year after the realignment, we did not meet JTE recognition, Jason worked with our officers, & Orca lodge was able to achieve JTE Gold status in 2013.

In November 2013, Jason took on the position of Lodge Adviser and has since served as a sterling example to our program. In this role, he has worked to expand the visibility of the Lodge in both Council and District programs. This visibility is allowing the OA to explore units that have been without our presence for many years. Jason's guidance, has not only promoted positive growth of membership and program features underneath our 2014 LEC, but also lead us to once again achieve JTE Gold status for the year of 2014.

Jason’s service to the Order in Areas W-5 and W-3; his leadership of both Orca and Apoxky Aio Lodges; and of course the execution of national scouting events has expanded our program through the last century and will continue to drive it into the next.