The Amer­i­can Adven­ture Ser­vice Corps began in August 1996 in Mor­gan­ton, North Car­olina as an exper­i­ment in a new type of pro­gram design to par­tially address the needs of young peo­ple uti­liz­ing the theme of out­door adven­ture and ser­vice to oth­ers. Orig­i­nally, the pro­gram tar­geted 25 boys and girls, ages 13 to 18. The con­cept has expanded to include 8 to 12-​​year-​​olds in a branch called Lit­tle Scout­ing Out­ward. The orig­i­nal unit main­tains approx­i­mately 50 mem­bers along with a grow­ing list of grad­u­ates, many of whom still par­tic­i­pate in sum­mer expe­di­tions while in college.

Mike Fis­chesser con­ceived the idea and devel­oped the pro­gram to be a hybrid of philoso­phies and method­olo­gies between Boy Scouts of Amer­ica and Out­ward Bound, since both orga­ni­za­tions had been a major part of Mike’s life. He wanted to cre­ate a year-​​round struc­tured envi­ron­ment with unique fun and high-​​powered adven­tures, includ­ing ser­vice activ­i­ties that would pro­vide edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties to keep mem­bers active and com­mit­ted for many years.

After three years of extremely suc­cess­ful pro­gram devel­op­ment, Mike decided to repli­cate the model on a national level with the vision of hav­ing TAASC units avail­able to many more young people.