Employee Spotlight- Mike McCartan

I was born and raised in the flat lands of the mid-west but was fortunate enough to have an outdoor focused and active family that always placed me in beautiful forests and open water. It was in college at Iowa State University that I discovered the West while on a trip to Escalante, Utah. I was immediately amazed, humbled, and hooked. Outdoor Education has been a mainstay for the majority of my education and career. In High-school I taught a sailing summer camp for middle schoolers and in college I worked as a facilitator for the Outdoor Rec Program. After college my friends and I moved to Colorado to play music and climb granite while I also worked to get developmentally disabled individuals into the community; this was the biggest change in my life up to that date as my eyes were opened to Rocky Mountain National Park, The Poudre Canyon and all of the rock, snow and ice of Colorado. After a couple years cutting my teeth there, I took a job as a Wilderness Therapy Guide in Utah which only helped me get out and up more; 8 days on and 6 days off, year round, with lots of good people, let me access the desert and the mountains in an extended way that I had not be able to utilize before. After a couple years there, and a month long pack-rafting/alpine-climbing trip to the Northwest Territories in Canada, I decided to focus on technical rock and mountain guiding. I got a job as a guide in the Pacific Northwest, progressed in the AMGA track and had a great time exploring the granite towers, glaciers and immense relief of Washington, British Columbia and Alaska while living out of various vehicles to be as mobile as possible. A couple years later I realized it was not going to sustain me in the long run so I joined my girlfriend on a USFS Wildland Fire Hand Crew and had a blast cutting, digging, hauling and joking. Once I realized that I didn’t want to break my back for a living, I took a job with Liberty Mountain selling the gear that I have been using for the past decade. It’s a good fit and I am glad to be in this spot! More adventures to come.

Name: Mike McCartan

Time working for Liberty Mountain: Since October 2018

Job title: Industrial and Government Sales

Role in the company: I work with customers who represent a large amount of our country’s energy, construction, military, and government industries while also collaborating with our group sales team. 

What do you like most about your job? I enjoy the autonomy and problem solving to create growth.

Active in the following sports/activities/hobbies: Climbing, skiing, running, reading, writing. 

Favorite activity: Climbing

Favorite outdoor areas: Indian Creek, UT

Piece of outdoor gear you most wish you had: Wish I hadn’t sold my pack-raft

Most interesting place ever lived: Utah

Top-five favorite movies: Ferris Buhler, Blues Brothers, Life Aquatic, Every Mel-Brooks, Every Tarantino 

Top-five favorite books: East of Eden, Still Life with Woodpecker, Vineland, Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Legends of the Fall. 

First memory spending time Outdoors: Forest walk with my Grandpa

Inspirational Hero: Jim Harrison

Dream vacation: Patagonia in general, then to Spain, France and Morocco. Duh. 

Favorite food to eat outside: Bacon

Cake or pie: Pie

Dogs or Cats: Dogs. I don’t get the point of cats. 

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