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What would you do if your work and passions could intertwine to create something truly impactful? For Maria Masiar, senior director of design at VTS, and a dedicated volunteer with North Shore Rescue, this question has shaped her career and life. By day, she leads the design vision for VTS’s suite of products—Lease, Market, Data, and Activate—crafting intuitive user experiences. But outside of work, she can often be found scaling mountains, navigating glaciers, or saving lives in the rugged wilderness of British Columbia.
Her journey into search and rescue began with an extraordinary commitment to pay it forward. Inspired by her own refugee experience as a child, she launched a campaign to help North Korean refugees escape to freedom. Over three years, she hiked the equivalent of 11 Mount Everests, raising funds and awareness by summiting peaks with flags bearing the names of her donors. That campaign led to a life-changing letter from a refugee who successfully crossed the border, solidifying her drive to make a difference.
In this Q&A, Masiar shares how her passion for design and technology aligns with her volunteer work, from creating life-saving apps after Hurricane Maria to teaching avalanche safety in her local community. She reflects on the profound highs and emotional challenges of search and rescue and explains how her company’s flexible work environment has been instrumental in allowing her to excel in both her career and her rescue missions.
Read on to hear Masiar’s story in her own words and to discover powerful insights into balancing professional growth with personal purpose, and how others can find similar fulfillment by aligning their skills with their passions.
Maria Masiar on saving lives in the mountains with North Shore Rescue
You volunteer for North Shore Rescue. Tell us about what you do there.
I became part of North Shore Rescue seven years ago through an extension of a campaign that I did involving hiking. Hiking has been a part of my whole life.
Being a part of North Shore Rescue, I give back to my community through my more technical hiking skillset related to mountaineering, mountain rescue, and tracking. Everything we do within search and rescue is to bring people back to their loved ones or save them out of crazy environments when they’re having a really bad day. My specialties within the team are rope rescue and mountain rescue on the team, which I focus on.
What initially drew you to volunteer search and rescue work?
The history of this really extends back to my childhood. I grew up in Communist Czechoslovakia, and as a kid, I lived in a refugee camp. I told myself that once I was settled in my life and in my career, and I had the opportunity to give back, that I would find a way to do that. My idea was that I wanted to save one person in the world for each of my family members who had escaped and had the opportunity to start a new life. This led me to a journey of trying to rescue four people out of North Korea.
I created a campaign with the help of an organization out of California called Link, which helps people through their journey through China and into South Korea (because they can’t cross the demilitarized zone). That journey takes about six months and usually costs about $3,000 USD for one person to escape for things like fees and bribes, food, some clothing, and some start-up money.
With the campaign I said that “I will hike anything you want to a mountaintop if you donate $50 to the cause.” The result of this was that over three years I hiked the equivalent of 11 Mount Everests, and I went out every single weekend, rain or shine, to raise money for this cause. As I was going, I would post on Facebook and I would document my journey of the places that I've been, and every time somebody donated I would have a little flag that I would add their name to.
After three years and literally hundreds of mountains, people noticed and were contributing to the cause. One day I got a letter from someone who managed to cross the border from North Korea. I just broke down in tears. It was one of the most monumental journeys I have ever taken, and I knew what that opportunity meant because I had gone through this type of experience as a kid to have a better life. This was my pay it forward to the world, and I deeply believed that when it was their turn to give back that they were going to remember that moment and carry it forward.
My involvement with North Shore Rescue was a way for me to continue to do what I already love on a more local level. It has been an incredible experience over the last seven years, being able to give back. As you mature as a person, you realize that you have an entire skill set that you can apply to a bigger, broader picture; you can use those unique skills. In my case, it was related to glaciers and rope rescue, etc. for a bigger, better purpose. That’s what resonated with me. It feels like I can give more and apply those skills in this way.
How do you educate or raise awareness about the importance of search-and-rescue efforts within your professional circles or broader community?
I give a lot of talks, and I have always been a part of the Alpine Club and BC Mountaineering club. Some people, when they’re first starting out in the clubs I mentioned, don’t have a lot of experience in the mountains and are just starting off in terms of finding their community to go hiking with.
What I often do is teach in those spaces on topics I think we should raise awareness about. This usually comes from if I see an uptick of certain activity that’s giving me pause for concern. For example, we’ve seen a huge spike in snowshoeing during the winter. It’s great because people are getting outside. But a lot of people who are brand new to snowshoeing have no awareness or education around avalanches, for instance. This means they will get themselves into terrain that is extremely dangerous.
I’ll go in and talk about basic avalanche knowledge and how to be safe in these situations—how to read a map and what resources are available to them, and how to find out if they are in a safe zone or not.
There is also a public outreach program. With the program, we go to most of the schools around Vancouver to raise awareness with students about practices around wilderness safety. One example is the “Hug a Tree” program, where if you're lost we teach that you should stop moving, stand still, and hug a tree. The message here is that you should stay put, and we will come to you because if you're constantly moving, you are a target that could be anywhere. This way, instead, we can locate you.
We also speak in public institutions and seniors homes, which helps us with public education. We receive many requests as well for us to come and speak at particular events since people want to learn about what we do and how we do it.
We have been able to push the boundaries in terms of mountain rescue. In North America we have partnered with the universities for a medical rescue program, and we have advanced medical providers that lead these functions. We were the first to do things like night vision for night rescues which was never allowed previously, which is a pilot program that North Shore Rescue really pushed forward with the Province of British Columbia.
Without us pushing that boundary forward, rescue wouldn't be what it is today within British Columbia, and North Shore Rescue has been a leader in this space.
What are some of the most memorable experiences you’ve had with North Shore Rescue, and how have these moments shaped your life?
There are highs and lows. The highest highs come when you're able to return somebody back to a loved one—a child to a parent, or somebody who thinks they're not going to make it who gets a second chance on life. I think those are really, really powerful moments, and it's a sense of pride working with one of the best and busiest teams in North America to get that done.
I also think the reverse is true. Many people ask me, why I put myself in those types of situations—they're almost unimaginable to some people. They ask me, 'Why would you do that to yourself? Why would you take on seeing harm and death?'
As crazy as it sounds—it's the counterbalance to life. Most people live in hyper-protected, safe environments. People forget what hunger and cold and distress look like and we live very padded lives in our every single day-to-day moments.
What search and rescue has taught me is never to take that for granted, because your life can change in a split second. You go out on a sunny day and you never return. That has some pretty deep psychological impacts on you. You learn to appreciate that every day is a gift, and that tomorrow is not a guarantee and it’s a reminder to me to live to the fullest every single day.
Although some of the experiences have been negative, they’re memorable because of that lesson.
Masiar on aligning her career with her volunteer work
How have your professional skills benefited your volunteer efforts?
I had this incredible opportunity to merge the professional skills and volunteer skills when I was working for IBM, where they had the concept of corporate services, where they would fly you anywhere into the world to solve a difficult problem with technology.
At the time, Hurricane Maria had come and destroyed 98 percent of the infrastructure in all of Puerto Rico.
I had the opportunity to design the first concept of an SOS signaling app, where we built these devices that were the size of my hand that worked off of a mesh network of communication. It allowed for, if you were stranded on your roof for instance, you could still get an internet signal that would send an SOS up into the satellite so that first responders could come and find you.
My job in terms of design was to figure out how anybody from the age of 4 to 94 could use this app, and how to make it usable even if someone was not literate.
That’s the best example of how my search and rescue life and design and technology came together to solve a real world problem.
You’ve also earned recognition both in your career and through your volunteer work. How do you feel these two aspects of your life complement each other?
Knowing yourself is really the core of both of them. Why is anyone successful in what they do? It’s because they’re passionate and care about it.
That’s true for work and volunteering. When it’s part of you, it doesn’t feel like work. In my case, it’s natural and feels like second nature to me since it feels true to me and both parts of my life feel like a deep part of my character.
I love technology and design, because if I was to literally express myself as a person, technology and design feed my brain.
Search and rescue feeds my heart, and it gives me purpose. I think we all need purpose in life, and I've tried to really marry those two things in my life as much as I can.
I've spent a large part of my career bringing design and technology and the humanitarian aspect of things together. That is what gives me fulfillment to bring things full circle.
When I started my career, it was through the United Nations, and I built the very first human rights website for the United Nations for UNESCO and the division of human rights. That was technology, design, and the humanitarian aspect coming together. The same happened during the pandemic when there were suddenly huge long lineups where people couldn't get to the food bank and there had to be times and time slots and waiting lines in all of New York City.
We worked with technology companies to create apps to schedule things for people so that they didn't have to be vulnerable and risk their health and wellbeing to get their basic needs met.
Also with search and rescue, we have an IT committee that I'm part of now. Every organization needs a web presence, and there is design work that happens for things like our logo and publications, and invitations that we do. It’s been important in my life to be able to merge those two worlds as best as I can, because then you can have it all—the technology aspect of my life with the purpose behind the volunteer work I do.
How has your company’s flexible work environment enabled you to manage both your professional career and your commitment to search and rescue missions?
Anybody who volunteers to the capacity that I do needs an understanding with their boss. There has to be a very deep trust relationship there. That’s something that I get permission in advance to do.
Obviously, it’s a give and take. There are times when I have to drop all of my meetings that day, and I'm out the door to save a life.
Thankfully, the people that I work with all know this and they know that at the next opportunity, I will reschedule those meetings and get caught up.
I can't tell you how important having flexibility in the work environment is. It's absolutely crucial for me to be able to perform to the level that I do.
I'm eternally grateful that we have such an environment that allows me to give in this capacity. Because I think if I was locked in a traditional 9-to-5 structured role, I really wouldn't be able to do that. I'm very grateful to VTS and its leaders that have allowed me, and given me the space to be able to do that.
What advice would you give to other professionals who want to take on significant volunteer roles while still advancing in their careers?
The key is to be true to yourself. If you can find a place where your professional skills can be married with your volunteer skills, that is the ultimate full circle, yielding purpose and a place that feels really really good to be in.
You have to be intentional. I seek opportunities that allow me to live a fuller life and a bigger picture, to have a grand vision. I look for companies and opportunities that will allow me to do that as opposed to just going to work for anybody. Even if two companies are similar in their profiles, this is the distinction to me—if they will honor what is at my core, and if they will allow me to express the fullness of myself.
I think that’s it—the advice is to be tactful in what you pursue and why and to make sure it’s aligned to your purpose as you move forward.
When you do that, eventually you'll start seeing the things click.
