JOSHUA TREE, Calif. -- As a young child, Jessica Quezada grew up with an adventurous spirit. She inherited this mindset from her grandmother, who would constantly travel the world and share how there was more to life than her neighborhood in Dallas, Texas. Quezada’s desire to travel and see the world led her to the Marine Corps, where she served as a public affairs Marine, traveling to seven different countries. However, she felt that other service members were not encouraged to travel, which inspired her to create her business, LiboRisk, when she left the Marine Corps in 2020.
“I wanted to create a sense of belonging and a community that would ultimately inspire that exploration [in troops],” said Quezada.
The term “libo risk” is believed to be derived from the Marine Corps, where Marines would be labeled liberty risks or “libo risks” for short. It implies that those Marines need to be watched and tend to get into situations they should not be.
“There’s definitely a negative idea around this,” Quezada said. “I wanted to name LiboRisk for that name because I think that we don’t encourage people to take enough risk.”
Quezada bases LiboRisk around three core ethe she asks every participant at her events to embrace; be receptive, respectful and risky. To be receptive is to be open to every aspect of the event and try something new. When she asks her participants to be respectful, she references the people and places they go.
“We want to remind people that travel is an amazing experience, but leaving a better footprint behind at every destination is the most important thing you can do, and that means respecting the people and places that you get to embrace throughout all of your adventures,” said Quezada.
She describes being risky as getting out of one’s comfort zone and doing things that may scare them, but knowing other veterans and service members will support them in their experiences.
Quezada took her experience in event planning and fostering a community that she learned as a public affairs Marine and applied it to launch LiboRisk.
She said, “I look at a lot of my experiences in the Marine Corps as a projectile for not only the person I became, but how it helped me create the entity that LiboRisk is.”
Quezada believes there are endless opportunities in the Marine Corps, and traveling is no exception. She hopes that in creating LiboRisk, she inspires troops to travel and explore every corner of the world while leaving a better footprint behind them.