Adventure Out programs have been featured in print media such as Fortune Small Business, the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and San Diego Magazine, as well as on regional TV stations. Hodges estimates that 10,000 students have passed through his classes in five years--and more than a few claim he's changed their lives. "He's an incredibly talented individual," says George Cagle, a technical program manager at Microsoft who's taken three Adventure Out classes. "He teaches you how to become involved in the environment, to realize that you're part of the wilderness."

To people who know Hodges well, the switch from high tech to primitive tech is no surprise. Back in college, "he was capturing squirrels in the middle of the city, and taking roadkill and turning it into hide," says his MIT roommate, Kai McDonald '03, SM '05, now a managing principal at a Southern California investment company. "I remember going into the freezer one day and seeing a strange item wrapped in plastic. It was a deer brain, which he was using to tan animal hides."

As an undergrad, Hodges learned the tanning technique (rubbing hides with brain matter to preserve and soften them) on weekends at a survival school in New Jersey. By his senior year, he was eager to teach the skills himself. He had his chance during IAP. "It was the coldest cold snap that Boston had seen in a decade," he recalls, "and we had to import all of our materials to our class location, which was right in front of the dome. We built a debris shelter from sticks and leaves we gathered near Walden Pond. We also created fire by friction and practiced water collection. We purified the water by dropping in rocks we'd heated over an open fire."

Even today, some of the technological advances that excite him most are those that occurred more than 10,000 years ago. Take the bow drill, for instance. "It uses human power to generate a greater force than humans can generate on their own," Hodges says. "When you look at two sticks rubbing together, it's not that exciting; but these inventions laid the foundations for civilization." The drill is made by securing a natural fiber to the two ends of a simple bow, then wrapping the fiber around a spindle. Moving the bow back and forth to rotate the spindle rapidly against another piece of wood creates friction, which generates heat and ignites the wood. The resulting ember is then wrapped in dried grass and blown into flame. Hodges can ignite a flame in 30 to 45 seconds; beginners usually practice for days before producing an ember.

Hodges also employs traditional techniques to hunt deer, wild pigs, and other animals that he uses for food and hides. "For me there are huge elements of sacredness and history to using these skills," he says. "The thrill and pride I take in harvesting my own food is immense, and wholly incomparable to anything else. It is cultural preservation--maintaining skills that are vanishing." He spends about 100 hours making the tools needed for one hunt--the bow, arrows, and stone arrowheads. In November 2007 he captured his first black bear, a 450-pound record-breaker. California Fish and Game wardens told him it is the only bear on record caught using a stone point.

Though he has no plans to go after any more bears, Hodges has no regrets about the path he's on. "People ask me, 'How do you feel about tossing away your engineering degree?' I don't feel that I've done that at all," he says. "MIT taught me the sky is the limit. Everyone there is trying to create something that's going to have a positive effect in the world.

"There are a lot of people fighting for the environment by preserving open space or working on clean energy. My way is to connect people with the outdoors one individual at a time."