Brittany Eck will tell you herself—she’s not a hunter, not really an angler, and she has no desire to clean a deer or gut a trout. What she does have, however, is a boundless love for Texas’ open skies, rugged landscapes, and the thrill of finding herself on an unpaved road, halfway to nowhere, with adventure on the horizon. For the last decade, she has fed this passion through Stewards of the Wild, where she has not only connected with our Texas wild, but made lifelong friends she otherwise may have never met.
Born and raised in Dallas, Brittany admits her first brushes with nature were a little on the “glampy” side, with Girl Scout troop campouts often taking place in a posh backyard instead of in the great outdoors. “I loved doing the activities and going to the campouts, but we weren’t exactly roughing it,” she laughs.
It wasn’t until she left home for Texas A&M in College Station that she pitched her first real tent. “College Station was the most rural area I’ve ever lived in,” Brittany recalls. “That was when I really got to experience true camping for the first time.”
After earning her bachelor’s in political science in 2001, Brittany moved to the megalopolis of Houston, which she affectionately describes as “city on city on city, before moving to Washington, D.C. But even during her decade at Capitol Hill, Brittany’s work was rooted in Texas. “I mainly worked for Texas members, so I have been focused on Texas politics and government my whole career.”
One of her more memorable moments in her now-extensive career was when she worked for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison’s office and joined the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Designation Tour. Here she traveled by bus from Natchitoches, Louisiana, down to Eagle Pass, a journey that retraced a centuries-old route once used to connect the American Southeast to Mexico. For Brittany, it unlocked whole swaths of Texas she’d never seen before. “It was eye-opening,” she recalls. “I realized how much of Texas I didn’t know, and how every corner of the state has its own story.”
That same curiosity eventually carried her back home, this time to Austin. She has spent the last decade with the Texas General Land Office (GLO). When Hurricane Harvey devastated the Texas coast, Brittany pivoted into full-time disaster recovery work for the GLO, traveling statewide to help communities recover.
While her career keeps her moving, Stewards of the Wild has kept her grounded. Nearly a decade ago, Brittany attended a film screening hosted by Stewards. That same night, she accepted an invitation to a Devil’s River trip, not really knowing what she was signing up for.
With only vague directions, she drove six hours, parked on the side of the road at the designated meeting point, and waited. “I became acutely aware that I had zero signal, and I’m out in the middle of nowhere by myself,” she recalled. “Then these other people pulled up, total strangers to me at the time. They said ‘your car won’t make it. We’ll give you a ride.’”
“But what I heard was ‘Get into this random guy’s truck. He’s going drive you out into the wilderness,’” she laughed. In a moment that made her big city instincts scream, she pressed on only to discover a wild river and a new community of friends she didn’t know she was missing.
That trip became the first of many. From camping at Powderhorn to exploring Big Bend Ranch State Park, which she swears—and we agree—is even cooler than the famous national park. Brittany has seen corners of Texas she once only knew on a map. She has also found friendships that extend far beyond campfires and fundraisers. “There are people I know through Stewards who I never would’ve met otherwise,” she says, pointing out that one of her fellow Austin Chapter Advisory Council members lives just two blocks away. Without Stewards, they’d likely still be strangers.
For Brittany, the magic of Stewards is its broad appeal. Whether you’re a lifelong outdoorsman or someone whose idea of camping involves indoor plumbing, the organization makes space for you. She delights in the variety. Fishing clinics, mentored hunts, fly-casting lessons at happy hours, and social events bring together people from all walks of life. “It’s rare to find a group where you can show up as you are—whether that’s with generations of outdoor experience or none at all—and leave with new skills, new friends, and a deeper love for Texas.”
After ten years, Brittany has become something of a Stewards veteran, but she still approaches each event, trip, or opportunity with the same excitement of that first Devil’s River adventure. “I’ve spent most of my career in politics and disaster recovery, which are both important but can be heavy,” she reflects. “Stewards is where I recharge. It’s fun, it’s meaningful, and it reminds me why conserving Texas’ wild places matters.”
And really, that’s the heart of Brittany Eck’s story. Someone who’s just as comfortable in the halls of Congress as she is on a dusty trail in Big Bend, finding joy in the unexpected and reminding others that conservation is for everyone—even those who prefer not to clean a fish.
