Trading Business for Bikes

18 years ago, Fred Ackerman '96 took a month-long sabbatical from his consulting job and never went back. Burnt out and looking for a break, Ackerman completed a few adventure tours around Australia, where he was living, and decided he belonged on the other side, running adventure tours, and in particular bike tours, himself.

Biking had been an outlet for Ackerman since he was a young boy. “I loved the freedom of riding around,” says Ackerman. “My parents divorced when I was seven and eventually each settled just five miles apart on Cape Cod, both with easy access to the Cape Cod Rail Trail. I biked between their houses and to my summer job.”

His passion for bikes and tinkering, along with a love of math and science, is what originally fostered Ackerman's interest in mechanical engineering and brought him to MIT, thinking he might someday design bikes. Instead, Ackerman got into management consulting after graduating to prepare himself to be a better engineer. “I wanted to learn more about business,” says Ackerman, “because I saw that engineers were often frustrated by their decisions being thwarted by different external factors and decisions, so I wanted to understand that better.”

Although Ackerman had made sure to take jobs that gave him opportunities to travel and bike, it wasn’t enough.  “I was in Australia working 80–100 hours a week under fluorescent lighting and I thought, I really could be in any office anywhere, I could be in Ohio right now.”

After quitting his job and working for two years as a tour guide at a large commercial tour company, he decided to start his own company. Today, more than 15 years later, Ackerman says Black Sheep Adventures is the best decision he’s ever made. “The name is just a fun way to convey uniqueness, because bike tours are pretty niche and just wanted to be fun with it,” says Ackerman. “My title is chief shepherding officer. We want to have a good time with it.”

While he ran the company solo for many years, he has developed an equally passionate staff of shepherds that help make the 50 tours they do every year possible—providing customized hike, bike, and rail trips. “I find it very rewarding to get to travel, to get to bring joy to people and to help them create memories they’ll carry with them the rest of their lives,” says Ackerman. “And I have a good time doing it.”

Black Sheep Adventures has also strengthened his connection to MIT—for the last 10 years, Ackerman has been collaborating with the (former) MIT Alumni Travel Program to run more than 10 trips, including one last August for the total solar eclipse and an upcoming Colorado scenic rail program in July.

Not only has it been the right career move for Ackerman, he even met his wife on a trip. “We’ve been together ever since,” says Ackerman. “I like to refer to that as my ultimate customer testimonial.”