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new hires

Gaia GPS Welcomes 7 New Team Members

by Julien Friedland September 30, 2020

written by Julien Friedland

Join us in welcoming seven new members to the Gaia GPS team! This new addition includes members of the support, design, and engineering team, bringing a diverse set of skills and outdoor experiences to our crew of 32 full timers. Get to know them and read about their wildest outdoor pursuits, their greatest professional accomplishments and the organizations they support.

Andrew Williams

Software Engineer

Wildest adventure: I went on a two-year bike tour with my girlfriend, riding from Vietnam to Turkey. During the tour, we had some of the easiest bike touring days imaginable – Vietnamese iced coffee and egg banh mi’s for breakfast and beautiful rolling countryside all day with a mid-day stop for cold beers and a nap in a hammock. We also had some tough days – getting altitude sickness at 14,000 feet during a blizzard in Tajikistan, followed by a solid month of food poisoning.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Landing a job at Gaia GPS 🙂

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community: One thing that travel has shown me first hand is just how much damage we’ve done to our planet, so I’m in favor of just about any organization that’s working to reverse that. One in particular that I support is Conservation International.

Ryan McElroy

Customer Support Specialist

Wildest adventure: I can’t think of an adventure more wild than building a life with my best friend. We’ve been fortunate to explore so many beautiful places and weather all kinds of storms together. Having someone with whom I can spend five months in a van, walk hundreds of miles across the desert, or care for an ailing grandparent has made for years full of rich experience.

Proudest professional accomplishment: It’s been a pleasure to reach thousands of students in my previous roles as staff naturalist, outdoor educator, trip leader, preschool teacher, and cross-country ski instructor. Nothing is more satisfying than helping people to connect with and better understand the natural world around them.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community: Every child should be able to learn, grow, and explore outside. Echo Hill Outdoor School provides these opportunities for students to immerse in place-based, experiential programming.

Nick Botner

Senior Product Designer

Wildest adventure:
Traveling to Isla Navarino in Tierra del Fuego, Chile and embarking on a five-day backpacking trip through the Dientes mountain range. On our trip we got snowed in for the entire second day. Then we had to make up a day while side-hilling iced-out boulder washes. Then the snow turned to rain and we were trudging through knee deep mud. On the last night the winds were so rough we had to abandon our camp location and find a new protected location down the trail. Had an amazing time and would go back again in a heartbeat.

Proudest professional accomplishment:
Designing the Gaia GPS logo.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community:
Mote Marine Laboratory because sharks are amazing.

Kristin McLane

Customer Support Specialist

Wildest adventure: Through a stroke of serendipity, I found myself attached to a private permit to raft the Grand Canyon one winter and it was one of the best outdoor experiences I’ve had. Spending four weeks in the canyon with professional river guides on their vacation allowed me to learn so much about the environment and its history, check out some of the canyon’s “secret” spots, and enjoy some amazing meals, all while learning to row big rafts through rapids.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Planning the first peer-to-peer fundraising/challenge event for the Green Mountain Club in Vermont to raise money to support the Long Trail, the United States’ oldest long-distance hiking trail, and get a community of folks to hike the whole 272-mile trail in one day.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community: The Social Justice Sewing Academy pieces together youth voices, textile art, and community in a 21st century sewing circle.

Tony Cannistra

Software Engineer

Wildest adventure: Hiking to a climate change research conference in the mountains of Colorado instead of renting an expensive rental car. Many people thought the poster tube strapped to my pack was a fly fishing rod.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Defending my Ph.D. on some new discoveries for better understanding the ecological impacts of climate change.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community: The Trust for Public Land, which protects landscapes for people.

Evelyn Cordner

Software Engineer

Wildest adventure: Running back-to-back ultra marathons at the Squamish 50/50 and finishing in fourth place. The hardest part was getting out of bed on the second day.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Building and leading a diverse and talented product team at Storr, Inc. Helping over 10 million athletes achieve their goals, find their community, and share their stories on Strava.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community: I’m a volunteer foster for the Humane Society of Truckee Tahoe. Dogs are the best.

Jen Smith

Software Engineer

Wildest adventure:
Completing the Dientes de Navarino Circuit with Nick — a remote backpacking circuit on one of the southernmost islands in the world with no trail and no rescue services during what turned out to be the first major storm of the season. When the snow, fog, and howling wind finally let up, the rime-covered spires guarding the passes above us were a sight to behold.

Proudest professional accomplishment:
Going from being the only front end developer at Geocaching to leading a team of front end developers at Geocaching.

One organization that you support and want to share with Gaia GPS community:
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, which provides fantastic tools and programs for research, education, and citizen science focused on birds and conservation.

September 30, 2020

Gaia GPS Welcomes Five New Team Members

by Julien Friedland April 19, 2020

written by Julien Friedland

We’re excited to welcome five new team members to Gaia GPS. Arriving with expertise in marketing, software engineering, and operations, this crew rounds out a team of 27 fully remote employees, spread across 16 states.

With this new round of hires, comes another dose of inspiring stories including both professional accomplishments and outdoor feats. Read on to hear about their experiences thru-hiking thousands of miles, rafting unfamiliar waters, hiking rim-to-rim-to-rim, and solo adventuring.

If you’re interested in future positions at Gaia GPS, we encourage you to sign up for our job alerts.

Jonathan Cohn

Digital Marketing Specialist

Wildest Outdoor Adventure: Rafting through the Grand Canyon with friends was a special adventure. When the trip began at the beginning of December, I had minimal whitewater experience. Three and a half weeks and 280 miles later, I felt at home behind the oars and off-balanced without sand in my hair.

Proudest professional accomplishment: In my first marketing role, I went from being just hired to leading and mentoring a team of seven other marketers in just over two years. Getting to pass down the systems and tricks I had learned was definitely a highlight.

Favorite trail snack: Sweet Cajun Fire Trail Mix has been with me on so many great days. However, I’ve been struggling to find it recently, so I’ll go with my number two – Sour Gummy Worms.

Sasha Heinen

Software Engineer

Sasha sitting on the rim overlooking a canyon

Wildest Outdoor Adventure: Most recently I completed a rim-to-rim-to-rim on the Bass trail system in the Grand Canyon, which doesn’t have a bridge to cross the Colorado River. In the course of the three-day trip, I was paddling across the Colorado, bushwhacking while being sleeted on, and post-holing in two feet of snow on the north rim.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Leading a team to build and ship native iOS and Android mobile applications using cross-platform components written in Rust.

Favorite trail snack: Avocado with key lime and hot sauce, crackers with cheese and jam, or Fritos.

Mary Cochenour

Content Manager

Wildest Outdoor Adventure: My wildest outdoor adventure happened on a three-day wilderness kayak trip on California’s Deer Creek. The water was fast with nonstop class IV and V action. The biggest scare came when an old cowboy appeared out of the shadows at our first night’s camp and pointed a rifle at our faces. We weren’t trespassing, but we put our hands up and begged for mercy. Eventually, the cowboy let us stay and I’ll never forget how happy I was to see our cars at the take-out.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Some of my proudest professional accomplishments have come from my experience as a backpacking guide, helping my clients realize their backcountry goals. Sometimes, it’s teaching more advanced backpackers how to navigate off-trail and other times it’s helping a brand new backpacker learn to shave their pack weight.

Favorite trail snack: Instant miso soup as an appetizer to dinner. So salty good.

Tom Kletzker

Office Manager

Wildest Outdoor Adventure: I solo hiked across southern Utah from Zion National Park to Arches National Park, including the Maze in Canyonlands National Park and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. I had never experienced that length of solitude to that degree before. My favorite memories were the petroglyphs on the canyon walls that dated anywhere from 2,000 to 8,000 years old.

Proudest professional accomplishment: I created an impact investment fund that helped stabilize economies in developing countries. We designed the fund to reinvest a majority of the profits back into a developing country’s need for water sanitation plants, green energy, hospitals, and other smaller investments.

Favorite trail snack: My wife bakes amazing bread so I’ll pack some of that along with some homemade jelly (jalapeño jelly is the boom) and some cheese.

Courtney Fiala

Software Engineer

Courtney grabbing a tube of apple sauce while hiking.

Wildest outdoor adventure: Towards the end of my Appalachian Trail thru-hike, we hiked one day like a marathon: 26.2 miles while only eating food from apple sauce squeeze tubes. At the “finish line,” I scarfed down a bag of spicy Bugles and a soda then immediately realized it didn’t agree with my nearly empty stomach. We spent most of the evening sitting on a highway bridge waving to cars and letting my stomach settle before heading to camp.

Proudest professional accomplishment: I wrote a prototype software system from the ground up that uses neural nets and an RF receiver to determine if anyone is flying a drone in the area. The finished version will be used to protect people in urban areas.

Favorite trail snack: Knorr Spanish rice with two packets of hot sauce and a squeeze of tomato paste split into a couple tortillas.

April 19, 2020

Adventures Company News Gaia GPS

Gaia GPS Welcomes 7 New Team Members

by Julien Friedland November 19, 2019

written by Julien Friedland

Today, we’re thrilled to introduce you to the seven newest members of the Gaia GPS team. Gaia GPS now includes 22 full-timers working on coding, design, cartography, marketing, and customer support, fully remote and distributed across the US.

It’s important that all the Gaia GPS team members are fueled by an adventurous spirit. As you’ll see below, these new folks have collectively amassed thousands of miles of exploration on foot, via bike, across open water, and in the saddle of an ATV. The team at Gaia GPS is an extension of the overall user community, and that helps keep the right focuses on new features, new maps, great user experience, and top-notch customer support.

These seven represent just the beginning of the company’s biggest round of expansion yet. If you’re interested in joining the team, click here to view our current openings and apply. We’re steadily hiring about 1 person per month.

Laura Friedland

Marketing Specialist

Favorite outdoor memory: I recently rode my bicycle from Medellín, Colombia, to the southern tip of Chile. Of the hundreds of sunsets along the way, my favorite was in Bolivia, on Salar de Uyuni—the biggest salt flat in the world. The only issue was the ~40mph winds. After three days on the salt flat, all my tent stakes were bent in half!

Proudest professional accomplishment: I teamed up with Katadyn USA and William Woodward (@wheretowillie) to create a short film about access to clean drinking water in the outdoors.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: It’s all about how you get the marshmallow off the stick. You have to clamp your stick between your knees and use two hands to sandwich the mallow between your graham crackers and chocolate. Then, you seamlessly twist the mallow off the stick into a perfect s’more. It’s a clean job every time.

Peter Liu

Software Engineer III

Favorite outdoor memory: At Þingvellir in Iceland, I walked between these two short cliffs. Turns out it was where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet, and one of the only parts of that not underwater.

Proudest professional accomplishment? A few years back I built an app to help low-income housing seekers explore new neighborhoods and presented it at the Obama White House.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: I’m pretty impatient so I just eat the marshmallows raw. Like a peasant.

Melanie Wilson

Customer Support Specialist

Favorite outdoor memory: My first solo backpacking trip sleeping on the banks of Loch Avon in the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland.

Proudest professional accomplishment: In my previous job as a librarian, I launched a collection of circulating hotspots and tablets. This collection helped reduced the negative impact of the digital divide in Lake County, Ohio, and it allowed students without internet access to complete schoolwork at home.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: I like a s’more with a little spice so instead of the standard Hershey’s chocolate I add chocolate with chilies.

Matt Palmer

UX/UI Designer

Favorite outdoor memory: A 1.5-week, self-supported bikepacking trip from Orange County, California, to Hetch Hetchy, mostly following the California Aqueduct. I had to lift my 80 pounds of bike and gear over about 80 gates, but it was worth it.

Proudest professional accomplishment: As a passion project during my time at ESRI, a friend and I collected anonymous Strava data to discover places where people were stopping on-trail. Land managers could then look at the data and identify those places as spots in need of better signage, benches for resting, or trail maintenance to fix obstacles.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: On my list to try: Some spicy cayenne dark chocolate and a cinnamon graham combo.

Adam Tootle

Software Engineer II

Favorite outdoor memory: As an anniversary gift, my wife surprised me during a trip to Mexico with an ATV tour through the Baja California Desert. None of the other scheduled riders showed up, so we ended up with a private tour. It was an amazing experience.

Proudest professional accomplishment: In the years I worked on health and wellness products, I loved receiving feedback from people who had just hit a new personal record for daily steps, or just trained for their first marathon. Building tools to help people improve their health and potentially live longer is something I’ll always be proud of.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: The only thing I’m a stickler about is how roasted the marshmallow is. Never let the marshmallow catch on fire. You have to know how to get the marshmallow right up to catch-fire level without going too far.

Jay Crooker

Customer Support Specialist

Favorite outdoor memory: Qualifying for (and competing in) the Ironman Triathlon World Championships in Kona, Hawai’i, in 1997.

Proudest professional accomplishment: Surviving my doctoral defense for my PhD in Analytical Chemistry.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: Heath Bar instead of chocolate. You’re welcome.

Jim Margolis

Customer Support Specialist

Favorite outdoor memory: I climbed Pingora, a peak in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, with my mother and the Grand Teton with my father. I’m close with my parents, and those adventures have been very special to me.

Proudest professional accomplishment: I’ve spent over 150 field weeks as an instructor at NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) teaching climbing, mountaineering, winter, and backpacking courses.

Recipe for the perfect s’more: I put the marshmallow on a stick and prop it about six inches from the fire until it browns. While I’m waiting, I put the chocolate on a graham cracker nearby to melt it. Once the marshmallow is ready, I use the two grahams to pull it off the stick. Really the only advanced thing I do is stuff the whole thing in my mouth at once!

Learn more about Gaia GPS’s newest employees and meet the rest of our team at gaiagps.com/company.

Still Hiring—Apply Today!

Gaia GPS is still growing. If you’re smart, motivated, and passionate about the outdoors, consider applying for a career focused on getting more people outside, and helping them stay safer every time they do. Keep an eye on the latest job postings at the Gaia GPS careers page.

November 19, 2019

Company News Gaia GPS

Six New Team Members Join Gaia GPS

by Corey Buhay May 6, 2019

written by Corey Buhay

We’ve just wrapped up a flurry of hiring at Gaia GPS, the biggest and fastest expansion the company has ever seen. We’re delighted to introduce you to six new Gaia GPS team members, all focused on making the software and maps better.

If you are on our mailing list, you probably saw our hiring blast earlier this year. All the folks you’ll read about below applied in response to that email and came from the Gaia GPS community. Get to know them below (ordered by start date), and then check out bios of everyone on the team on the Gaia GPS company page.

Austin Hess

Software Engineer III

1) Proudest Professional Achievement: Rebuilding the New York Times’ email and newsletter system from the ground up. As the primary engineer on the project, I designed and implemented most of the components of a system to notify millions of users of breaking news within minutes.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: I’m not sure exactly when my first outdoor adventure was, but I do remember one particular excursion near where I grew up in Pennsylvania. I was wearing rubber boots because the area was swampy, and as I was heading back I decided to take a shortcut along the edge of a pond. A few misplaced steps later and I was thigh-deep in smelly mud. After a 30-minute struggle, I extracted myself—but with only one boot. I walked the last bit with a bare foot, and never saw the boot again.

3) Go-To Camp Meal: Any rice/legume combo, with a good amount of hot sauce.

John Czaplewski

Software Engineer II

1) Proudest Professional Achievement: Designing and building a database and app for bedrock geology (Rockd). Before, there was no easy way to find out what kind of rock you were standing on. Now you can just open an app.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: The first time I went backpacking was with the University of Colorado, Boulder, hiking club. During the night a snow storm rolled in, which forced us to wake up every hour or so and push the collapsed tent off of us. One of those times I thought I heard someone walking around to fix their tent, but in the morning I saw bear tracks inches from where my head was.

3) Go-to Camp Meal: Mac and cheese with smoked sardines.

Jay Martindell

Software Engineer III

1) Proudest Professional Achievement: Implementing smooth-zooming on the Google Maps website. It’s the kind of thing that mostly goes unnoticed, but it replaced the previously janky scroll-to-zoom function for customers who collectively use it a few billion times each month.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: When I was younger, my scout troop scheduled an intro-to-backpacking trip to Lanham Lake, an easy 1.5-mile trek. We were hit with a torrential downpour that lasted all weekend. After sloshing through shin-high puddles, we arrived at camp, erected a fortress of tarps, and made the best of it. When we noticed the “Noah’s Tarp” branding on one of them, we couldn’t stop laughing. It’s difficult to say we spent much time “outdoors” that weekend, but we certainly experienced the elements.

3) Go-to Camp Meal: As far as I’m concerned, there are two ways to eat ramen: as a dry slab topped with seasoning powder, or cooked with butter and seasoning powder. Anything involving liquid in the final result is a recipe for a scalded lap (I would know).

Torrey Hogan

Software Engineer in Support

1) Proudest Professional Achievement: Working for Pacific Gas and Electric after the San Bruno natural gas pipeline explosion—I trained a team of engineers to perform quality control for improved safety.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: My first backpacking trip was on the Kalalau Trail in Kauai with my best friend. We planned a 10-day trip for only 22 miles of trail, and camped at the same beach for six days. We almost lost our minds to boredom.

3) Go-To Camp Meal: Pad Thai Ramen. With crunchy peanut butter. Add hot sauce as needed.

Lee France

Cartographer

1) Proudest professional accomplishment: Working in the Patagonia region of southern Chile, creating topo maps to be used for the Patagonian Expedition Race. At the time, the area hadn’t really been mapped, and the effort involved some intense backcountry field testing.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: The trip that comes to mind was a nordic ski summer dryland camp I did in Washington when I was probably 11 or so. I had a very uncomfortable external-frame pack my Mom had used hitching around New Zealand when she was in college. I also remember getting a fish hook stuck in my hand while at camp…rookie mistake.

3) Go-To Camp Meal: Mac and cheese with a bunch of added veggies and some sausage cooked over the fire or stove. Not the lightest-weight meal, but so worth it after a long hike!

Jeremy Lehman

Software Engineer I

1) Proudest professional accomplishment: Helping to launch the share feature for Amazon Photos, allowing customers to share their photos with all their loved ones and friends.

2) First Outdoor Adventure: My first outdoor adventure was climbing Mt. Ellinor in the Olympics during the spring. I managed to only fall down a grand total of 20 times.

3) Go-To Camp Meal: Backpacker’s Pantry Three Cheese Mac & Cheese

New Projects on the Horizon

With the size of the company expanding by almost 50 percent in recent months, the team is excited to dig in on projects to add great features, faster infrastructure, and more maps. Keep an eye out for big improvements to Hike Search, as well as updates to the map catalogue and mapping efficiency on the mobile app.

We’ve wrapped up this round of hiring, but we look forward to growing even more in the future. Be sure to check the Gaia GPS Jobs page for current and future openings.

May 6, 2019

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