Builder Profile
or when you’re eyeing a new project, what motivates or excites you?
Jennifer: Anytime there’s something that’s going to challenge us, we’re interested, because that’s what we’re all about. If it’s something just a little outside of our comfort zone, we want to see what we can do with it. At the same time, it’s more about learning from a client how this thing will be used and what the guests will feel while they’re using it and after they go home. It’s got to fit our mission of people having these life-changing experiences and learning about themselves and learning about their community or learning about their family or having an experience together. Erik: What we’re looking for is passion. Some camps just need a ropes course built so that they can make some more money. Others have leaders who say, “a challenge course saved my life as a kid and I’m a new human because of it, and we want one in our camp.” That’s the stuff that gets our company fired up; the passion that our clients bring stimulates our staff. We also like new creative things, espe- cially Zeke [Caldwell], our construction manager. He loves to push the bound- aries in what we design. Our project on the island of Lanai includes a giant steel adventure tower. There’s a bunch of adventure parks around, right? But this one’s different. It looks different, and it’s in the middle of a lake. We’ve had local kids and adults and some of the world’s most famous people on it, and they all love it. We get to design that stuff. We love that. We’ve also been designing new activities that are a cross between an outdoor physical activity, such as a playground, and a traditional challenge course, where you’re not just balancing on
Building in unique locations and designing creative things are a Synergo specialty. Above left: A climbing tower in the woods. Above: The Aerial Adventure Tower at Hawaii’s Lanai Adventure Park offers two tiers of intersecting bridges, elements, and obstacles—in the middle of a lake.
things, you’re not wearing a harness, and you don’t need spotters. Some similar activities have already been introduced in our industry. But now, we’re taking those and creating a group experience where you can just go up, read some instructions or a storyline, and say, “hey group, here’s what we gotta do.” API: Erik, you’ve been involved in the Mount Hood Kiwanis Camp—an outdoor recreational camp for indi- viduals living with disabilities—for years. Does that have any influence on Synergo’s mission? Erik: I started working there back in the ’80s, and I chair the board now. It’s the camp I grew up at, and my mom was the director of camp for a while. I went to a small private school for a while with very similar human beings. They all looked the same. They all sounded the same. They all had similar parents who all had professional jobs. Then my summers were spent at the Kiwanis Camp, where nobody was the same: every human being at that camp, you have to work with them differently. When we take people who live with dis- abilities and we put them on the ropes course, everybody gets put on in their
own way. That mentality of figuring out how to customize challenge courses or zip line tools or anything for each person instead of all people remains one of the underlying principles of our business.
API: What’s it like to work as a husband-and-wife team?
Jennifer: It’s certainly not without challenges, but I feel like we learn so much about ourselves and each other through work. Earlier on, we kind of stayed out of each other’s way in terms of what we were responsible for. I was running the day-to-day business, work- ing with clients, communicating about program scheduling. Erik was mostly handling instruction, and he would go out and do the programs. Now, it’s a bit more overlapping. We have such great staff who are directors of our depart - ments, and now our job is supporting them, guiding them, and growing the business. Erik: It’s super cool, because work is our thing to do together, and we love growing it and stressing about it. As we work, travel, solve problems, and grow the company, we are building memories together. When we are old and slow, sitting on the front porch of our assist-
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