Jesse Safford (they/them) started climbing during college in Montana, but it wasn’t until they moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan, that they stumbled upon setting. Now Jesse is the Head Setter at Terra Firma. Jesse is also an avid comp setter, chiefing and setting their annual in-house Rabble Rouser competition at Terra Firma, and has set for Death Moth, Siege the Southeast and Flight of the Phoenix, among many others. Most recently, they’re extremely excited about the upcoming Midwest Mayhem series. Outside of climbing, Jesse is a birdwatcher, Dungeons and Dragons player, and cat parent. What does D&D have to do with working on a routesetting team? How can we all play a role in improving our team dynamics? Jesse and Holly dive into those topics and much more on today’s episode.

• What does it mean to have “good vibes” on a routesetting team?
• How social pressure influences us in routesetting and tips for Head Setters/Event Chiefs to soften the atmosphere
• Emotional awareness and situational awareness of team dynamics
• What Dungeons and Dragons can teach us about team vibes
• Checking in on yourself and verbalizing your own needs to the team
• Role modeling vulnerability
• How Jesse and our host, Holly, met / Jesse’s perfect D&D campaign

• Find Jesse Safford on Instagram
• Terra Firma
• Competitions mentioned: Death Moth, Siege the Southeast, Midwest Mayhem, Flight of the Phoenix
• All you need to know about Dungeons and Dragons battle strategy

If you’d like to nominate someone as a next guest, have a topic you want to see us tackle or have questions, we’d love for you to reach out.

The Impact Driver podcast is a production of the Climbing Business Journal. Today’s episode is sponsored by Approach and Trango. It was edited and produced by Holly Yu Tung Chen, Scott Rennak and the team at CBJ. Our theme music is by Devin Dabney.

Today on the Climbing Business Journal Podcast, host John Burgman meets with Jonathan Brandt. Jonathan is one of the co-founders of a new climbing gym in Holland, Michigan, called Shift. It's a 12,000-square-foot, bouldering-focused facility, and by Jonathan's own admission, there aren't a lot of bells and whistles in the gym, meaning there aren't a ton of fancy accouterments or amenities that are too far afield from climbing. Inside the space is primarily a bunch of really cool boulders and the community of staff and stoke that has developed around those blocks.

Jonathan has been in or around the climbing industry for about 20 years. So, Shift’s founding comes with a lot of expertise and experience. You'll hear Jonathan explain how and why he felt the timing was right now, after all these years, to finally open his own gym. And he acknowledges there are a ton of other bouldering gyms out there right now. So, the question becomes: How do you stand out in this day and age? How do you set your new gym apart from the pack? There are several ways to answer that question, but Jonathan's contention is that, in the case of Shift, it has a lot to do with the staff you hire and the culture that staff helps to build.

• Introduction to Shift
• Holland, Michigan and Gym Development
• Mission and Business Philosophy
• Staffing and Culture
• Family Meals and Staff Development
• Hospitality and Community Building
• Hold Room Design and Wall Construction
• Marketing and Future Plans

• Shift
• Shift Instagram: @shiftclimbing

Thank you Approach and Kilter for your support! And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

On this episode of the Climbing Business Journal podcast, host Holly Chen sits down with Carly Snidow. Carly is a routesetter at Vital’s Lower East Side location in Manhattan, New York. She has been climbing for almost a decade, and her setting career started like many others—setting college climbing walls and bugging local routesetters. Now, Carly is a USAC Level 1 routesetter with a dozen competitions under her belt up to the divisionals level. She has set for several citizens' comps as well, including Siege the Southeast. Carly is also a coach and personal trainer. Prior to setting, Carly studied philosophy, neuroscience and psychology. She has extensive lab experience spanning multiple disciplines, from microbiology to behavioral neuroscience and developmental psychology. Carly brings that scientific lens to the show today, challenging how we think about goal setting and success in the routesetting field.

• How the scientific method can inform routesetting
• The most common success indicator for setters in climbing competitions: separation
• Breaking away from separation as the only success indicator
• What is inductive reasoning, and how does it relate to routesetting
• Process versus outcome-oriented goal setting
• How do process and outcome-oriented goal setting influence our perception in climbing and routesetting

• Find Carly Snidow on Instagram
• Vital, Lower East Side
• Inductive Logic
• Hippocampal and amygdala volumes vary with residential proximity to toxicants at Birmingham, Alabama's 35th Avenue Superfund site

If you’d like to nominate someone as a guest, have a topic you want to see us tackle, or have questions, we’d love for you to reach out.

The Impact Driver podcast is a production of the Climbing Business Journal. Today’s episode is sponsored by Butora and Essential Climbing. It was edited and produced by Holly Yu Tung Chen, Scott Rennak, and the team at CBJ. Our theme music is by Devin Dabney.

On this episode of the Climbing Business Journal Podcast, host Scott Rennak meets with Mark Grossman and Will Jorgensen of the Monument Sports Group. They manage the US Group Insurance Plan for our industry in partnership with the CWA, and they cover hundreds of climbing walls. Mark and Will have deep experience in facility operations. You'll hear on today’s show about their backgrounds, how they approach their insurance work, and the headwinds the indoor climbing industry is facing.

• Monument Sports Group Company Background and Experience
• Industry-Specific Insurance Challenges
• Risk Management & Documentation Requirements
• Post-Pandemic Legal Environment Changes
• Routesetting Certification Evolution
• Auto Belay Safety & Technology
• Current Market & Political Factors
• Business Operations Support

• CWA Insurance Program
• Monument Sports Group
• DOXA

Thank you OnSite and Rock Gym Pro for your support! And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

Obe Carrion is the guest of this episode of the Climbing Business Journal podcast, hosted by John Burgman. Obe has long been one of the biggest names in the game as a pro climber. Over the years, he has worked with multiple brands, and he's been in multiple climbing films, including the 1998’s Free Hueco! and 1999’s Rampage. He has been a coach, a mentor, and through all of the evolutions he has remained a force of nature in the climbing industry. John and Obe talk about Obe’s career and psych in climbing: how psych is never a constant, but how there can be value in it as an unknown, and in the way that motivation comes and goes and then comes back again eventually. Obe also reflects on climbing in the 1990s, the filming of that famous Rampage documentary—in which Chris Sharma stole the show at an X Games in San Francisco on this day, 26 years ago—hanging with Sharma, coaching the next generation, and evolving with the times.

• Introduction and Obe's Background
• Career Decisions and Early Development
• Competition Scene and Mentorship
• Sponsorship and Professional Development
• Bouldering Boom, The Video Era
• Rampage Film Production
• Transition to Coaching
• Coaching Philosophy and Modern Climbing
• Industry Evolution

• Find Obe Carrion on Instagram: @obe_carrion
• Rampage on YouTube

Thank you Approach and Kilter for your support! And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

Joey is the co-founder and owner of his own hold company, called Ocelot Grips, out of Oregon. But Ocelot Grips is the end product, or at least the current end, of many, many years of Joey working in the industry as a hold shaper. He has designed and shaped holds for a lot of different brands over the years. He gets into his story in more detail in this episode, but he also offers some fascinating insights on his artistic philosophy for shapes and how that works in conjunction with his philosophy for functionality in shapes. Because hold shaping is like routesetting in that sense; it’s partially an artistic craft as well as a utilitarian or commercial craft. Art, commerce, functionality—it's all wrapped up in the life of a hold shaper. And, as a longtime shaper and setter, Joey is a great guest for riffing on all of those finer points of the craft.

General Topics Covered

• Introduction and Industry Status
• Joey's Background and Entry into Climbing
• Oregon's Significance to Hold Shaping
• Hold Design Philosophy and Learning Experiences
• Aesthetics vs. Function in Hold Design
• Founding Ocelot Grips
• Current Work and Future Plans

• Ocelot Grips
• Ocelot Grips Instagram: @ocelotgrips

Thank you EP Climbing and Rock Gym Pro for your support! And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!

Today’s episode brings Ruth Jang to the show. Ruth is a routesetter at Central Rock Gym in Atlanta, Georgia. She first picked up setting as a bucket list challenge and because she saw a gap in the gym: not enough entry-level, competition-style boulders for people to learn from. Her thought? “Why not infiltrate from the inside and learn from the best?” Before she knew it, she was pulled into the gravity of the setting world. Today, Ruth is a USAC Level 3 routesetter with her first national event on the horizon this June. She’s also set for citizen comps like Method Underground. Before setting, Ruth came from a background in academia and biomedical research, where she studied stem cells and the opioid epidemic.

• How a negative became a positive: Ruth’s unusual introduction to climbing
• An Eastern versus Western approach to team dynamics: collective and individual identity
• What is true collaboration in routesetting?
• The similarities between team sports and routesetting
• Communication and how it can change team dynamics
• Poetry and routesetting
• Handling arrogance in the setting industry

• Find Ruth Jang on Instagram
• Find Ruth’s poems, Logic of the Woods, all proceeds go towards the Southeastern Climbing Coalition (SCC) and Training Indonesians for Transition to Institutional Programs (TITIP).
• Central Rock Gym
• What is Futsal?
• The difference between Eastern and Western (collective versus individualistic). Further readings:
  • How East and West think in profoundly different ways, David Robson, BBC
  • Cultural differences are far more nuanced than East vs West, Matt Hudson, Psyche
• “I think, therefore I am.”
• Resources and further reading on Eating Disorders:
  • National Eating Disorder Association
  • National Institute of Mental Health - Eating Disorders

If you’d like to nominate someone as a guest next guest, have a topic you want to see us tackle, or have questions, we’d love for you to reach out.

The Impact Driver podcast is a production of the Climbing Business Journal. Today’s episode is sponsored by Essential Climbing and Trango. It was edited and produced by Holly Yu Tung Chen, Scott Rennak, and the team at CBJ. Our theme music is by Devin Dabney.

Brian is the General Manager and Co-Owner of Bluestem Boulders in Ames, Iowa. It's a fairly new gym, having opened last November. The climbing walls and flooring at the gym are by Onsite, and the CRM software is by GymDesk. But what's noteworthy for today's conversation is that Bluestem is only two miles from the campus of Iowa State University, so students from the university form a large customer base for the gym.

• College Demographics and Gym Proximity
• Marketing to College Students
• Programming for College Students
• System Boards and College Appeal
• Gym Operations and Observations

• Bluestem Boulders
• Find Bluestem Boulders on Instagram: @bluestemboulders
• More background on the opening of Bluestem Boulders: Bouldering Gym Opens Two Miles From Iowa State University

Thank you Butora and RGP for your support! And thank you Devin Dabney for your music!