Our Philosophy



At Volcan, we see a great need to assist indigenous cultures that are affected by volcanic hazards.  Our team members have spent considerable time on many various projects working in such places and have seen firsthand the urgency of the need for assistance and support.


As scientists, we understand the importance of collecting data and performing proper analyses to better understand the unique situation that each volcano creates.  Each volcano is like a living thing with a heartbeat, a respiration rate, and a personality.  It takes considerable time and resources to understand the personality of individual volcanoes.


Spending time and resources to study volcanoes is valuable for many reasons.  It is a tragedy, however, when that research is being done only for the sake of the scientific community and the people at risk are left in the dark.  It is good to make advances in technologies and to adopt methods of eruption forecasting, but those efforts need to have a positive impact on the local populations.


Volcan focuses on making a connection with the communities in which we work.  We believe that our work should not only contribute to science, but have a direct and positive impact on the people we work with. 


To have the greatest success in saving lives and property, we must first learn who those people are and what they value.  We must immerse ourselves into their communities and share our work as they share their culture with us in order to form a partnership.  Through this philosophy, Volcan aims to preserve and protect these precious pockets of indigenous people who build their lives on active volcanoes.