Jake Kheel - How a Generalist Found His Calling in the Dominican Republic

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[00:00:10] Dominique: Hello. Welcome to Green Champions.

Champions Thanks for joining us in a conversation with real people sharing sustainability success stories.

This podcast is a platform for green champions to share their stories and plant new ideas. I'm Dominique.

[00:00:22] Christy: I'm And I'm Christy.

[00:00:23] Dominique: Today we are very excited. We're speaking with Jake Kheel. He's 

a sustainability innovator, a conservationist, public speaker, 

author, and award winner for his documentary filmmaking. bio for Jake could go on for about, probably a small novel. But really notable is his work as the Vice President of Sustainability at grupo Puntacana, where he 

helped to establish them as a leader in sustainable tourism, also 

received awards from organizations 

such as National Geographic and Condé Nast Traveler. Today 

we're talking about 

sustainability 

in the 

world of 

tourism 

and 

hospitality. 

And we'll talk next time 

about 

more of the future of sustainable travel. But 

thanks for being here, 

Jake.

[00:01:02] Jake: Thanks so much for having me. Good to be here.

[00:01:04] Dominique: Jake, I think I have about a million questions. I also want our listeners to 

know that Christy 

just 

came back from a trip 

where she got 

to 

explore some of the grounds. 

And so we'll 

also probably get to all feel jealous as I do right now 

of how much Jake and Christy 

are about to bond. But Jake, kick us off. I know your grandfather was 

a big part of your relationship 

with 

Puntacana 

and the land. Can you tell us a bit about like how you grew up 

spending time there 

and what that was like?

[00:01:30] Jake: It was my grandfather's brother, Ted Kheel, was one of the founders of Grupo Puntacana in the late sixties. And I really had no knowledge of Puntacana or the Dominican Republic and really didn't come here at all, until high school. It's the junior year of high school. My boarding school had a study abroad program and I just applied randomly. I was encouraged by the teacher to go and learn how to speak Spanish and lived with a family outside of Santo Domingo in Dominican Republic. And I was on my way to Dominican Republic for this program, then my grandfather called me and said, "What are you doing in Dominican Republic?"

"Oh no, I'm in the study abroad program. Should be fun." And he said, my brother has a significant interest in the country." I said, no, no idea. I didn't even know where it is. High school, you apply for something. You go like most of my friends, "Ah, they probably speaks Spanish, they probably speak English there. You'll be fine." And so I went, and before I came, my grandfather got me in touch with my great uncle Ted's partner here, Frank Ranieri. And that's who I ended up working for, for the last 21 years. So it was really just a funny coincidence and just a love affair with the country, with Dominican Republic that started back in high school.

[00:02:36] Dominique: And where did you grow up? 

So where 

was home for you?

[00:02:39] gc-5-18-dominique: you? 

[00:02:39] Jake: So I grew up in Florida. I was born in Florida and then my parents split up. We moved to Massachusetts and so I spent most of my, young years in Massachusetts. And then, once I got into boarding school and then college and after college, bounced around the United States to some different places.

So I'd say more or less, Massachusetts is home.

[00:02:58] Dominique: That's awesome. 

Since we're 

gonna be really digging into why 

you love it so much and what you've done there. Can 

you tell 'em about it or 

maybe tell 'em what they, '

cause maybe 

it's similar to you. They're like, I don't know where that is.

[00:03:10] Jake: Yeah, it's amazing. It's in the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic's probably the second largest island in the Caribbean behind Cuba, and it's a three and a half hour flight from New York City. So it's very relatively close to the United States and it shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, with the country of Haiti.

So you have these two countries on one island, the Dominican Republic occupies two thirds of the island, and we are on the far eastern tip of the Dominican Republic. it's, it's funny, many people have heard of Puntacana and think that it's a country in the Caribbean and don't realize that it's part of the Dominican Republic.

So it's just a name and we can talk about it a little bit that my boss, Frank Ranieri and Ted came up with in the seventies to describe this part of the Dominican Republic, where they wanted to try and bring tourists. And the name at the time was Punta Borrachón, which is Drunkard's Point. Which is probably accurate nowadays, you come on vacation. But at the time they thought, this is too complicated of a name for a tourist to say, so we need a simpler name. And so they named this area after a tree, the Cana palm, which was very common in the area, it's still very common. And that became Puntacana. And so that's how it's known.

Everybody knows basically the whole region as Puntacana because the airport's name is Puntacana but essentially there's lots of little communities here, but generally speaking, everybody says that is Puntacana.

[00:04:30] Dominique: Would you say 

that's aptly named? 

Yeah, I think it's a great name. I'm pretty sure they wish they had trademarked it at the time. I think nobody really knew how successful this destination was gonna become in the future. So when they came up with a name and our resort was called Puntacana Resort and was not trademarked. And now that everything is Puntacana, so it's very hard to distinguish our little slice of this amazing destination is known as Puntacana Resort.

[00:04:55] Jake: But basically everybody says, oh, well, the Puntacana, that must be the all inclusive up in Bávaro or Cortecito, Uvero Alto, Macau, all these towns. And really, we were the original Puntacana. But it's, I think it's a great name. They love the fact that this destination was named after the trees.

I think we've tried to live up to that standard as a company. And the Cana has become emblematic for us. That Cana Palm is still part of the logo. It's still part of much of the landscaping here. We even used it in thatch roofs and construction all over the resort. The kind of really a symbolic piece for our company.

[00:05:28] Christy: Oh, I love it so much. 

 I'm hanging on the edge a little bit 

because I'm 

picturing you as 

a 16-year-old in a new country, 

I wanna know what happened to you. 

What was that 

experience you learned about 

your uncle? 

This was, a study abroad 

experience. 

Was 

that a 

turning point in some ways of conservation 

or not? What happened?

[00:05:49] Jake: I think if I would say my love of the outdoors and nature and animals and being outside and hiking and being in rivers and lakes and the ocean was just something my parents got us into early and just stuck with my brother and I basically our whole lives. And I just got really into it as a kid and then the more I learned about the threats, then it made a lot of sense to me, well, what can I do in my life? I don't really wanna be a scientist. I wanna try and protect this amazing planet that we get to live on so other people can enjoy it and other people can have some of the experience that I've been lucky enough to have.

And then so I fell in love with nature, I would say first, and then I really fell in love with the Dominican Republic on the Study Abroad program. And it's just, it's such a unique country. The people, the flavor in the Caribbean, you have some countries that sort of came from a colonial background or to be frank, slavery or, other things that happen in these different islands.

The Dominican Republic has a really unique history. Basically, the Spaniards came here, they integrated pretty quickly with the native population. A lot of people died because of disease and whatnot, but there wasn't really a huge subjugation event. And then the Spaniards abandoned the Dominican Republic and Hispaniola to go look for gold elsewhere.

And so the people that were here, like they didn't get out of this colonial rule, the Spaniards just left. And in fact, the Dominican independence didn't even come from Spain. Later, it came from Haiti. And so it really translates into the future where people are just 

[00:07:17] gc-5-18-jake: just 

[00:07:17] Jake: Very warm, very welcoming, love talking with new people. Dominicans are very outgoing. They're notoriously gregarious and loud, and I just really was drawn to that culture, just there was such a warmth to this place. And then as I got to know it better, there's just a huge diversity of nature. There's 13 mountain ranges, it's the two highest peaks in the Caribbean. Coral reefs, mangrove swamps, you have deserts, you have dunes. You have just this amazing diversity on one island. So I really just got drawn to that. But it really started just with people, the people, the culture. It's just a very fun place to be, and it's a really warm culture in general.

[00:07:55] Dominique: I really appreciate the way 

you even explain its 

differentiation with other, the Caribbean islands. 

And I 

know you also 

went 

on 

to study Spanish, 

Spanish literature 

in particular. And 

then you built on that later on in 

your 

academic career with you went to Columbia and Cornell to 

study conservation and soil science.

I always like talking about kind of the academic side of things because I think some of that, 

like, demystifies 

how you 

get 

to contribute in spaces like this and have 

frankly, a 

really cool job. So what stands 

out to 

you from your education 

in 

terms of, what 

you bring with you 

day to day that you learned in

those 

academic settings?

[00:08:30] Jake: Yeah, I think I'm a generalist, and I think that comes from liberal arts education in undergraduate. I would say you don't really become expert in anything when you do liberal arts. I learned how to speak Spanish. I learned how to write. I learned how to read. I learned critical thinking. I learned how to do research. But, I was not qualified really to do much besides all of those things, but except for to learn how to do new things. And I think that's incredibly important and useful in the field of sustainability because it's constantly evolving. The challenges are constantly evolving. The technology's evolving, and you have to be able to adapt to what's changing and have to develop new skills. And so I think that's been incredibly useful to me. Spanish language, I just, I had this experience in Dominican Republic. I was probably 16 years old and I became pretty fluent.

 probably still had a pretty good gringo accent going, but I felt pretty confident in my Spanish and my comprehension and writing and reading. And so then after that I really wanted to just keep using it, And it was a skill that I just really didn't wanna let die. lots of examples.

People study abroad, they learn a language and then they never use it again. Well, Spanish is, it's a useful one. You can find it pretty much everywhere in the United States and around the world. I really love the language too. I love the kind of idiosyncrasies of speaking Spanish. And then the academic piece of it, I was in these amazing universities that I got to attend and was pretty clear from the very beginning. I didn't want to be hardcore scientists. That's just not really the way my brain works. I studied Spanish literature. My idea was, I wanna be creative and think about things in different ways and think about them outside the box and not rigid scientific process.

I appreciate the rigid scientific process. I love science. I read papers. I'm fascinated by it. I love chatting with our staff, but I really just didn't want to dedicate my career to publishing papers and, competing in that way. And I think of science for me is just another tool in the toolbox for conservation, and for sustainability.

Just more information, better ways to understand what's happening and better ways to apply good decision making to some of these complex challenges we face.

[00:10:35] Dominique: Yeah. Speaking of, I, think that 

folds really nicely 

into, I wanna know more about, your day to day, 

and how much you call on maybe your Spanish to 

navigate interpersonal conversations 

or how much you 

have to 

pull some science 

outta your back pocket 

to rationalize 

an initiative. Can you walk 

us through maybe 

like, an 

average day in the work that you 

do today?

[00:10:56] Jake: Well, I think what's kept me here for 20 years, I really don't have an average day. basically every Monday I have a really long meeting with the executive committee and basically the rest of the week is just a little bit wide open. A lot of things happen and we prioritize different things at different moments.

So as much as I can, I love spending time. Where you met me in compost, if I can be around that environment and learning about that environment, it's very hands-on. There's so much to learn. I love being in that environment. Unfortunately, I have to delegate that. I have a coordinator who runs our compost operations, generally speaking.

And so I don't get to do that every day, but that's where I would probably be. Number two, I would be with the Hawk Conservation Project 'cause we're fortunate to work with the Peregrine Fund and just, it's amazing group of people. Passionate about conserving this endangered hawk species and just being around them, it's infectious.

Being around the hawks, learning about all these idiosyncrasies, these birds, the crazy stories they have being out in the field, that's probably where it'd be. And then a lot of the rest of the time it's, helping manage our staff. It's getting out on the reef and seeing the work that we're doing and understanding the impact we're having and how I can help facilitate improving how we're doing, managing the different projects.

And then recently, we get into the sargassum season. For us, this is a invasive seaweed that hits the beaches here, starting out now and in June. And it's something we manage. And I'm part of a team that has the emergency response to this. An example, on Tuesday, basically got into snorkel gear with one of our marine biologists and with our operations person for sargassum management. And we got in the water on one side of the property and we literally swam and drifted to the other side of the property with a boat following us, looking literally at Sargassum barriers and how they were behaving with the amount of sargassum hitting them and trying to look at ways we could improve their performance.

And so that was literally four hours of my morning was staring at Sargassum and swimming under barriers and being in the water. And we would have these conferences, we'd pull up and we'd be all hanging out on the barriers talking like, well, what do you think of this? What do you think of that?

We'd have these kind of impromptu brainstorms in the ocean with our snorkel gear on. And then, we drifted, probably three kilometers along the barrier.

So that was Monday. And then yesterday, we were up a new project, on the kind of north side of Dominican Republic where Grupo Puntacana is. I'm gonna be partnering on a new hotel, our second project or third project outside of our actual resort here. And so we were doing site inspection, looking at the beaches, looking at the mangroves, looking at the features of this property, and what will be our relationship at that as we begin to build a hotel.

So really no day is the same, every day there's new things happening. Lots of meetings with partners, lots of people visiting us, wanna chat about things, and getting to meet people like you, and interact with other parts of the public. So every day is different. I think that's what keeps it exciting.

[00:13:41] Christy: Jake, 

 I wouldn't mind having a day or 

a 

half day with 

you. I think that'd be great, a whole week. 

I wanna 

touch on something you said about the people 

because I've 

been to the Dominican 

Republic three times 

now, all on sustainability 

related trips.

Even though while, most recently it 

was fun, I turned it 

into a sustainability trip because they always 

should be.

But the 

thing 

that is amazing 'cause you also mentioned Spanish, right? It doesn't matter 

if you 

speak the language 

or not. I've never been to a country where 

people are so expressive 

and 

so proud 

to share 

their experience 

with people.

I just want to reiterate that and I hear that coming 

out 

in 

what you're saying. so I just want to, acknowledge that and 

it's just a fantastic experience. I think 

I 

wanna touch on 

tourism a little bit because 

when I was 

there, there were a couple things I would say I noticed. I was 

at 

Grupo Puntacana I was 

able 

to see a 

lot of 

the work you're doing. But one of our 

questions almost a 

lot of times when you travel somewhere, you have these points where tourists might not see things. 

I felt like 

I saw 

multiple indications of what was happening. For example, the sargassum, 

like lots of communication 

about what's 

happening with the barriers, why it's important, 

what 

you're doing with it. So I feel like you're communicating well with tourists and helping 

them get 

that sense of place, 

but is there something that you feel tourists aren't 

noticing that 

you wish they did? Or is there a 

future project that you 

have that's 

going to blow tourists away with, learning about something new about the Dominican Republic?

[00:15:08] Jake: Yeah. it's always a balance because when people come on vacation, I really am careful to not unburden all the great things we're doing on them, because it's our responsibility to do it in the first place is the way I feel. A lot of times you talk about a guest who comes and you make them recycle and they should contribute to this and they should do that.

And I think if you're a traveler, you should do the basics of being a good, responsible traveler. Not eat the food that's not in the right season. Not buy stuff illegally, not engage in illegal activities, be culturally sensitive, like the basics. But I think the mechanics and the back of the house, management of the destination, that's our responsibility. we're the ones that are benefiting from these visits and we should really work on that. So a lot of times in our case, that's just the basic operations for us, like taking care of the trash in a responsible way is what we feel should be done. And we think everybody should do that.

And so if we get celebrated for it, that's fantastic. And if the guest perceives it and they find that to be a very attractive part of their visit to, Grupo Puntacana, the Puntacana Resort. That's fantastic, but I don't feel like we should be celebrating ourselves too much for our sustainability programs because that's what we should be doing, now there are some things that we do where we go way above and beyond what other folks do, and we're really proud of it, and a lot of times it's a great yes interaction. So the stuff we're doing with the coral reefs, this has been something that's been happening for a long time and not all of it had to do with us and with the development, A lot of the coral reefs, we have documentation from the early eighties. We started losing coral cover and there was over exploitation of the fish before there was really any tourism in this area.

And so it's been a concern for Puntacana for a long time. And so we've invested a lot of money, a lot of energy, a lot of staff, a lot of effort in trying to protect and restore the coral reef. But it's also a great opportunity to interact with our guests and share what we're doing, get them excited about reefs, get them out on the reef and see it, get them interacting with fish.

Get them to understand why we don't serve certain food in certain seasons, certain species of fish, or lobsters and things like that. Why we respect these laws and we expect them to. So I think it's just a great way to interact with your guests. But I'm always a little sensitive about saying oh yeah, well this is, make the guests pay for that and may, the guests should be the one doing this.

 that really the mechanics of sustainability should start with us fundamentally. We should be performing at a high level and then pass that energy and that capacity onto our visitors. I wouldn't say we're particularly good at communicating. I'm glad you had that experience. I feel like we could be way more communicative because we have just a huge diversity of programs.

It's very hard to explain that and not just take up a guest whole day talking about it. Basically give them snippets of it, give them a taste of it, give them opportunities to interact with it, but it's hard to just unload it on 'em. A lot of people come here, they just wanna read their book, hang out with their kids.

[00:17:49] Christy: Absolutely. I think that comes 

through too, just 

going back to the people pride. But yeah, it was, it's fantastic experience for sure. 

Absolutely.

[00:17:58] Dominique: Yeah, And 

that 

definitely feels like a really interesting balance you have to make between 

education, and,

maybe a desire to 

engage with people, but also knowing that they have other missions for being there. 

And 

I 

also really like that you want 

what you're doing, not 

to be notable 

and commendable, but to be like just 

the standard of how 

we manage things.

You are 

creating such a wonderful experience 

for 

people while doing the right thing. And too 

often those things are often talked about, 

like, being mutually exclusive. 

 And I 

know 

something else I wanted 

to 

make sure we talked about 

before 

wrapping up your 

episode here is that you have a 

whole creative side.

We haven't even dug into that and the things that 

you've created. 

But 

I wanted to call out that you co-directed and 

produced a documentary, Death By a Thousand Cuts. And you explore 

deforestation and 

like, human conflict along the Haitian 

and 

Dominican border. I'm 

sure we could probably talk about that 

for a whole 

episode in itself.

What motivated you 

to create 

that film, and 

then what's a takeaway that you really hoped audiences would leave with?

[00:18:58] gc-5-18-jake: So 

[00:18:58] Jake: we 

got involved with making documentary film in 2012 and it was finally released in 2016. It was acquired along the way, went to festival in 2016. The idea basically for me was that documentary was just another tool for conservation, the same way I think of science as a tool for conservation.

A lot of people use photography now. People use social media, writing, whatever it is. I just thought of documentary as a really potent way to tell stories and get people engaged in some of these issues. And I was fortunate to have this amazing team that helped put together that really helped tell this story.

And we've kinda stumbled across the story when I was doing my master's research on the border of the DR in Haiti and literally you'd be out in the mountains and I was studying more to do with forest that time. And you could smell smoke and you could hear axes, but you could rarely see them.

And so I always say, what are they doing? What is that? Why is it so far away? Why is like this mystery about it? They're like, oh, they're cutting down the forest to make wood charcoal and it gets consumed in Haiti. And so what's a wood charcoal? I never even heard of this. And so basically people would make these ovens in the middle of the forest.

And then, the Haitian farmers would put it on their head or on a donkey or whatever and cross it across the border, and then they would get commercialized for their fuel source. That's how they cook. A huge number of, 80% of the population depends on wood charcoal in Haiti for cooking.

And so the DR, because they've done a decent job managing their forest reserves is a source for wood. And so that's what happens. And so I found out this story and I was just really curious about it and wanted to kind of follow the story. And I was fortunate enough a good friend of mine's a filmmaker and guided us through this process.

This is how you make a documentary film. So I was super fortunate to be able to bring this very important global issue of sort of conflict between two countries over their natural resources and tell it through the lens of a documentary film that it was storytelling because it wasn't narrated film, we really found characters that could tell us what was going on, and we ended up uncovering a murder that we followed and it was a Haitian charcoal producer murdered a Dominican Park ranger, and we went and investigated and met the Dominican Park Ranger's wife, and it turned out she was Haitian, so his children were half Haitian.

His brothers resented the wife because he had been murdered by a Haitian and she was Haitian. And so it was this wild story that led us into the illegal trafficking of charcoal. And the creativity side of it was really being surrounded by really great filmmakers and an amazing cinematographer.

And my executive director just knows the business up and down. And so I was just lucky to stumble into this great story and find the right people to help tell the story. And so I've continued doing documentary film projects and working on other ways to amplify some of these environmental issues that maybe people don't have the time or the energy to really dig into and really try and tell them through this lens of, characters and stories.

[00:21:43] Dominique: wow, 

that is like layers 

and layers of interesting stuff. the fact 

that you dug past I think like 

an ecological 

conversation to find such 

like 

deep human 

roots, that also just 

feels poetic in itself. That is amazing and I am so glad you put that together and I'm 

glad that 

it proved to be more 

and 

more interesting the more that you dug 

into it.

On our next episode we're 

gonna talk 

about, you touched on 

compost 

projects, hawk 

conservation,

managing people, the reef, and talking about 

like invasives. We'll 

dig into all that in our next episode and all the amazing work that you're doing.

How can people connect with you and continue learning from your work?

[00:22:18] Jake: Yeah, I'm getting pretty active on Instagram. I think that's the main platform in the Dominican Republic. So Jake Kheel on Instagram. And then, I published some articles, I published a book a few years ago so that people can check that out if they wanna dig into more of some of our background in Puntacana.

The book is a little bit more of an overview of sustainability and kind of the, getting your hands dirty, trying to actually do the work. As opposed to a theoretical framework or something academic is really this is what we've been doing. This is things that worked, what didn't work, what we've seen in other places that we found to be inspirations.

So the book's interesting, Waking The Sleeping Giant, and it's essentially the whole idea is about how we can take better advantage of the private sector to really push environmental issues and sustainability issues.

[00:23:01] Dominique: Thank 

you for 

being here. 

and 

I'm excited for the next one.

[00:23:03] gc-5-18-dominique: one 

[00:23:03] Jake: Thank you. Looking forward to it.

[00:23:05] Christy: Each guest brings a different approach to sustainability. We're here to highlight the people doing the work that inspires others because climate action takes many forms.

[00:23:12] Dominique: As always, you can find our episodes and support the show at thegreenchampions.com. If you enjoyed the episode, you can follow us, subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform, You can 

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Our 

music 

is by Zayn Dweik. Thanks 

for 

listening to Green 

Champions. We'll be digging 

into the second 

half of Jake's success story in our next episode.