This month, we are excited to spotlight Ashley Schahfer out of Portland, Oregon! Ashley is a recent participant of our Turns & Berms camp in Bend and has received KBF grants over the last decade for a Nordic ski, an alpine ski, and a mountain bike. 

This year at Turns & Berms, due to the historically low snowfall across the West this winter, Mt. Bachelor closed skiing operations, and the camp took a pivot to paddling. This was a perfect substitution for Ashley, who was part of the design team for the Miller’s Landing accessible kayak entry right in Bend, Oregon. 

The 2026 Turns & Berms group visiting Millers Landing accessible kayak entry, designed by Ashley and her team.

“My background is in architecture, and accessible design has been the throughline of my career from the start,” Ashley says. The full expression of her accessible design work can be found in her consulting practice, EmpoweringAccess.com, which she founded “to go beyond the ADA compliance checkbox,” she explains. Instead, the focus is on access that is “both meaningful and useful,” especially in outdoor and public lands contexts. “It’s both my design work and my consulting work rolled into one; they inform each other constantly.” 

Ashley describes herself “happiest off the beaten path.” She loves the desert, the wind, and leafy trees, and says surfing is her newest sport obsession. She cites KBF’s support as a significant part of what shaped her path in accessible design. “Having access to the right gear opened doors that made this career feel not just possible but necessary,” she says.