How many of you love riding your bike? It doesn't matter if you're shredding down a mountain or commuting to your job, there's just something special about being on two wheels because it harkens back to childhood and represents freedom and exploration with wide eyes and helmet hair.

Stephanie Kaplan is the Road Product Manager for Specialized Bikes. Yes, many of the bikes you see on the shelves at your local shop were conceived and designed by Stephanie and her co-workers of creative designers and engineers. 

This is the ultimate "dream job" journey about how she went from casual rider, to racer, to Ambassador and finally to Product Manager for one of the biggest bike companies in the world in a short span of time. 

It's a job that has taken her around the globe and it even made she and her husband a bi-coastal partnership for the first two years.

• How did she land her dream gig?
• How do bike companies even know what to design? 
• How do they research and predict industry trends 2, 3 and 4 years into the future? 

We talk bikes, but the conversation would be complete without a little dive into her personal life including some unfair perceptions of her "leaving her husband" and moving across the country to chase her dreams in a male-dominated industry. We also touch on the life-changing turn of becoming a Mom because, yes, apparently absence does make the heart grow fonder. 

You can have it all, but you have to chase it and make some concessions, but you should NEVER underestimate the power of your passions because they can turn into your dream job!

 

Carrie Barrett Site

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Theme Music: ”Aitech" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/