Co-Founder - Director of Employer Relations
I was born and raised in Maine, USA, the state where earmuffs were invented. At age seventeen with a pair of earmuffs in one hand and a scholarship to a liberal arts college in the other I left Maine for Portland, Oregon. Four years later I graduated with a degree in comparative religious studies. Finding the job prospects for novice oracles exceedingly dim I entered the not so exciting field of college fundraising. My boss and I found out simultaneously that asking rich people for money wasn't my calling and came to the mutual conclusion that I should move to another country as soon as possible.
Six months later I found myself choosing between installing telephones in the Central African Republic and teaching English in South Korea. I selected the latter. Unfortunately, soon after I arrived the school where I was contracted to work went out of business (it wasn't my fault) and I began another new career, this one as a freelance English tutor in Seoul, South Korea. When the Korean Won took a swan dive towards parity with the Haitian Gourde in 1998 most qualified teachers sensibly fled Korea for their own countries where they could get higher paying jobs; jobs that entailed saying, "would you like fries with that?"
Not able to afford a plane ticket home I stayed in Korea and walked into my first university gig. Over the next two years the Won recovered and I grew to appreciate the rigors of a 12-hour work week, finding time in my busy schedule to eat water bugs in Cambodia and drink fermented horse milk in Mongolia.
I left Asia on a tramp steamer bound for South America on a quest to find myself and ended up teaching English in Brazil. More lost than found among a sea of thong bikinis on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, I nonetheless managed to meet characters ranging from a scam artist posing as a priest in Rio to orchid smugglers in the Amazon. After walking (actually stumbling between gasps of oxygen depleted air) to Machu Picchu, Peru, I found my way to Vancouver. One night while drinking a couple of cold Kokanees, Jeff and I were discussing how we could possibly put our experiences to some useful and legal end, and Footprints Recruiting Incorporated was born.
Ben Glickman
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“Tomorrow is the big day! I finally get to meet my co-teacher and see my apartment! I just wanted to write to say thank you so much! To you and to all of the Footprints staff. I have talked to many people here about they agencies they went through and I feel like I was really well prepared in terms of what to expect. I really appreciate all of your help in answering my questions and helping me to navigate the extensive paperwork! Here's to a great year in South Korea !!! ”
