It is the people that make up who and what a company is. Especially in the world of educational travel. And because we are a company that values relationships – clients are no mere numbers here – we are glad to be introducing our fabulous team in this series “Who is Global Travel Alliance.” And we’ll start with someone who has been with us from the beginning.
For over 17 years Steve Maehl has been working for Global Travel Alliance as a first-class Education Program Specialist (our lingo for someone who works with our teachers), an outstanding guide and our current Vice President of Field Operations. He has, in fact, done it all for us…but that’s not all; he has also served for 5 years on the Student & Youth Travel Association (SYTA) Board of Directors and was its most recent President. (For those unfamiliar, SYTA is the association watching out for educational travel; your class trips, essentially. It’s an important organization with an important mission.)
In your search for the right educational travel partner, if you’re looking for someone professional, knowledgeable, hard-working, and a pleasure to collaborate with, you’ll find no better than Steve Maehl.
As a travel expert and connoisseur, it’s hard to select just one favorite destination (he’s visited nearly 70 countries!), but Steve especially enjoys visiting Asia and immersing himself in that culture, cuisine, and incredible hospitality.
Beyond his travel interests, in his free time you’ll find Steve volunteering at his church as a deacon, hospitality team member, and missional community leader. He also enjoys reading and spending time with his lovely wife Judy and his wonderful two children, Sienna and Taylor, exploring their home state of Florida.
“Travel has had a huge impact on my life personally. Growing up in Montana there were not a lot of opportunities to explore new cultures, foods, etc. Traveling as a kid to EPCOT in Florida and the World EXPO in Vancouver led to huge dreams of one day exploring the whole world and all that it had to offer. Once I had that opportunity, I wanted to share that with others and help give other kids the same experience of dreaming big and learning all about this amazing world that we live in.”