ABOUT
Sam Carter
Host, Producer, Founder
Sam gained his podcasting skills from working as a volunteer DJ at KDUR in college. He recorded incoming satellite feed news, played music and was the morning voice from 6-9am. Soon after he took over a talk show on that same station and began hosting weekly episodes covering a variety of topics.
After college, Sam became a public high school teacher and in his teaching career, has taught all levels of students from pre-school to college freshman.
While in college and while teaching, he worked as a backcountry guide on rivers and land in the Southern Rockies and on the Colorado Plateau.
While running rivers in the southwest he began asking questions about why the Dolores River was without water. This path led to Sam serving as the Board President of Dolores River Boating Advocates for several years and working as the BLM River Ranger on the Dolores.
Sam grew up fascinated with water and boats in Southern Illinois, close to the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. He lived on a sailboat off the coast of Honduras for a life changing experience at 19. In the years after, he hitchhiked across the mid-west and western United States.
All of those prior experiences began to merge when Sam developed River Radio, a volunteer public radio show. After several years of River Radio, he moved on and created the River Radius Podcast. That has become his full time endeavor. Sam now is deeply honored to be the host of the River Radius, helping people tell their river stories.
Samantha Sais
Social Media Boss & Strategic Consultant
Sam is a trained photographer and journalist working in Idaho. She works as a freelance photojournalist and has traveled around the country, East Africa, parts of Europe and Central America.
Sam has years of experience covering national news, politics and everything in between. She has extensively covered the U.S. Mexico border and immigration issues.
She continues to shoot for The New York Times, Reuters, Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post.
Sam remembers the beginnings of social media and how it became integrated into news media sparking her interest in social media management. She now manages several accounts for businesses and nonprofit entities.
The River Radius welcomed Sam to the podcast team in the Spring of 2022 giving her the opportunity to contribute her social media management skills and to dive deeper into rivers. She’s paddled Six Mile Creek in Alaska, the Numbers, Browns Canyon, and she has rowed the Grand Canyon and Dolores in Colorado, Hells Canyon and the Middle and Main Forks of the Salmon River in Idaho.
Sam believes that The River Radius is a great conduit for river education, conservation and science based relatable conversations that encourages informed action.
Samara Rosen
Contributing Host
Samara (she/her) first fell in love with rivers on the bow of her mom’s kayak. She chased whitewater through California, Oregon, Utah, and now Arizona. The currents inspired her to orient her degree around riparian science and the human relationship to water. The boating communities she met along the way moved her to devote her thesis to interviewing and researching river guides and river activists across the state of California.
Now, when she’s not designing guide education programs, mobilizing her communities around river conservation, educating her students on a raft, or instructing whitewater guide schools, you can find Samara, mic in hand, scribbling out the next river question she’s curious about, and editing together a river revelation that she can’t wait to share with river communities.
Dylan Penick
Contributing Host
Dylan Penick went on his first rafting trip at 7 months old on the Hiwassee River. His love of the river comes from his family. His dad has been rafting on the Ocoee River since the late 70's. When Dylan turned 6, his dad got a gigantic (to Dylan) 14 foot purple Aire raft. Dylan still uses that boat to this day, 27 years later. Most weekends you can find Dylan on a southeastern river, usually the Ocoee River.
Dylan started River Company Outfitters in the Spring of 2019 with the goal of sharing the love of rivers through cool shirts and hats that people could wear on and off the river. During Covid he did what most people did and just went outside. With all of the river festivals being put on hold, he started posting more river content on TikTok and Instagram. In 2022, RCO social media videos had over 45 million views and then in 2023 over 60 million views. He also has a podcast called "My Favorite River: River Company Outfitters" which interviews people in the river community.
In the Fall of 2022, Dylan got to hang out with Sam Carter as he journeyed up and down the east coast. From Gauley Fest, the Green River Race and taking Sam down the Ocoee River a friendship and bond quickly formed over storytelling and rivers.
Greg Cairns
Contributing Host
Greg is a documentary filmmaker, editor, and Idaho river guide. His commercial film clients include The BUILD Show, Patagonia, Montana State University, and the National Science Foundation. Greg is a contributing host to the River Radius Podcast. Adventure Journal has described his work as “subtle, delightful and sneakily powerful.”