Hear shoe dog and Portland legend Ian Williams talk about the culture shock he experienced at a young age moving from a diverse neighborhood on the East Coast to the--especially-then--non-diverse Portland area (Beaverton/Hillsborough), why he was obsessed with Allen Iverson and inspired by his playing style and the influence it had on his life, how a short stint of bad behavior in middle school led to him being put in private school and the subsequent dress code that influenced his love of shoes, how a calculated move taking a job as a janitor at Nike opened the door to making his shoe dreams a reality years later, what became more important to him than shoes (and even coffee), and much more!

Follow along:

@eeeweezie

@deadstockcoffee

deadstockcoffee.com

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Also supported by our friends at Trail Butter, smart fuel for your fire.  Use code GETAFTERITWITHTB at trailbutter.com for 25% off!

Hear restaurant/hospitality veteran Katy Connors talk about her path from growing up in small town Arizona to working in and directing operations at some of the hottest hotels and restaurants on the west coast, why Los Angeles (where she was originally born) always held a special allure that eventually drew her back years later, the challenging post-9/11 political climate she grew up around in conservative Arizona and how her unique high school experience provided some respite, why she studied religion and how traveling and living abroad during college shifted her anticipated career path, her memorable time in LA and throwing herself into a demands of high-level hospitality positions, what led her to Portland and to eventually meet her husband Taylor, and much more!

Follow along:

@kt_connors

@hatyaipdx

hatyaipdx.com

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Also supported by our friends at Trail Butter, smart fuel for your fire.  Use code GETAFTERITWITHTB at trailbutter.com for 25% off!

Hear NYC-born, Connecticut-raised holistic wellness teacher Maggie Converse talk about childhood on the east coast with two actor parents, how growing up around the arts lead to majoring in Art History (and French) at University of Indiana at Bloomington years later, her 8-year stint back east in NYC after she graduated and the variety of jobs that followed, her passion for yoga that developed over the years from her first class with her mom at age 16, her struggles with an eating disorder that she began to recognize and address during college and how yoga helped her find a new appreciation and love for her body, the process of making yoga (and meditation) and helping others recovering from eating disorders her career focus, why she wanted to move West and what lead her to Portland, and much more!

Follow along:

@maggie_converse

maggieconversemethod.com

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Also supported by our friends at Trail Butter, smart fuel for your fire.  Use code GETAFTERITWITHTB at trailbutter.com for 25% off!

Hear passionate outdoor athlete and marketing guru Michael Griffin talk about growing up in Chattanooga, Tennessee and later Athens, Georgia, his early love for rock climbing that developed there and grew into a full blown lifestyle for years after high school (and how that pursuit has continued throughout his life), his move to Portland once he was ready to get more serious about college and his graduation with an Environmental Science degree, how he came to shift career paths from an Environmental Science job into marketing, his path to Finex from being a consultant during their Kickstarter to Marketing Director and an integral part of the recent acquisition by Lodge Cast Iron (since 1896!) 5 years later, how Portland had changed in his years here, the exciting new community marketing he's doing by supporting (and taking part in) Gabriel Rucker's Bird Dog Run Club, what's next for him and Finex, and much more.

Follow along:

@michaelg_pdx

@birddogrunclub

@finexcookware

finexusa.com

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Also supported by our friends at Trail Butter, smart fuel for your fire.  Use code GETAFTERITWITHTB at trailbutter.com for 25% off!

Hear multi-faceted designer Lizy Gershenzon talk about growing up in Chicago and playing all the sports as a kid, how her experiences working on the yearbook staff in school with close friends laid the groundwork for her preferred work structures forevermore, the influences her hard-working, business-minded parents instilled in her, what led to her developing interest in web and graphic-design during college and why she really became an Art Major, meeting her future husband Travis while answering freelance design work ads on Craigslist and how they immediately started a business together, how their two years living in New Zealand opened her eyes to her love of nature and later caused their relocation to PDX, the creation of Scribbletone, the Wy'east Wolfpack logo and branding, different side businesses as well as their newest project Future Fonts, and much more!

Follow along:

@lizyjoy

@scribbletone

scribbletone.com

@futurefonts

futurefonts.xyz

@notch_ftw

notchftw.com

@exifco

exif.co

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Hear Oregon-born and bred trail running race director Jeremy Long talk about growing up on the Oregon coast and his early connection to the landscape of his youth (more to the land than sea though), his tendency toward running and cross country over typical team sports and the love of the activity he shared with his brothers, how he needed a white noise machine to help him get to sleep when he moved inland for college (without the sound of waves crashing...), his journey into public health and the desire to help others, the sense of belonging and community he felt from running events and culture and how that led him to create Daybreak Racing, his eventual transition to going full time at Daybreak and leaving public health behind, his family's support in taking the leap and how his kids have taken to the race-director life, what he sees as the future of trail running and racing, and much more!

Follow along:

@jlonghaul

@daybreakracing

daybreakracing.com 

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Hear Native American outdoor athlete/activist and board member of the Honnold Foundation Len Necefer talk about growing up in Kansas and the pivotal decision to move with his mother to live in the Navajo Nation in Arizona at a young age, the balance and juxtaposition of identity and experience between his Native American family on his mother's side and European-descended family on his father's, what lead to his interest in energy issues and social justice (and later climbing and skiing!), how he came to work for (and eventually decide to leave) the US Dept. of Energy, the creation of NativesOutdoors as a social media project and how it evolved into a well-connected apparel and media company, challenges he's faced as a Native American along the way, what the future holds for him and NativesOutdoors, and much more!

Follow him:

@lennecefer

@nativesdoutdoors

natives-outdoors.com

@honnoldfoundation

honnoldfoundation.org

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Hear passionate entrepreneur and hospitality fanatic Sam Purvis talk about growing up in Oregon (first Portland, then Sisters) and the process of moving around as a youth as one of five brothers, his early outdoor escapades during high school motor biking in the foothills outside Sisters, how his faith lead him to seek empathy for those living on the streets and how that urge set him on a path of traveling the country with a friend and living with homeless populations they met along the way, the lasting impact that trip had on his life and what came next upon his return to Oregon, his evolution toward being interested in coffee and cafe culture, why he came to care less about the coffee and more about the people and experience and how that tied into the creation of Good Coffee (with his brother Nick!), why he wants people to know that they are valuable and worthy, and much more!

Follow along:

@goodcoffeepdx

goodwith.us

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Hear yoga teacher/wellness veteran/community guru Skylor Powell talk about growing up in Ohio and her early connections to nature through exploring the local woods, how her time at a "farm school" program made her embrace the teamwork and community dynamics necessary to get big things done, her decision to head West for college and how on-the-spot curiosity to explore her potential made her sign up for a yoga teacher training, what brought her to Portland, Oregon and her first professional endeavors here, how the election of Donald Trump and realizations she had on election night led to the creation of The Thread US, her experiences hitting the road and traveling the US talking with people of all backgrounds and political beliefs, why she feels this project and this work of getting people to openly and respectfully communicate about tough issues is so vital, and much more!

Follow along:

@skylorpowell

@thethreadus

thethreadus.com

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling

Hear tireless social change activist and diversity, equity, and inclusion champion Hanif Fazal talk about his father's journey from Africa to India to the United States--where he met Hanif's mother in Chicago--and how that blend of cultures (Indian and Mexican) made his upbringing really stand out from the nearly all-white landscapes and institutions he found himself surrounded by after his family relocated to Tigard, Oregon, some of his earliest memories of that move from Chicago to the Portland area at age 3 and what it was like trying to settle into structures that had zero similarities to his own experiences at home, the range of emotions he felt as a child under those circumstances and how that lead him to act out, how some seriously rough years in his teens in Portland further opened his eyes and made him consider what people could achieve and accomplish if the world around them was actually designed to give them a proper chance at success, how he finally pulled out of that dark period and landed the first job that gave him a real sense of meaning and a feeling of having the potential to really matter and make a chance in the world, his progression of work and projects and the eventual momentum of people starting to reach out seeking his expertise, and much, much more!

Follow along:

@centerforequityandinclusion

ceipdx.org

Brought to you by the Aimsir Distilling Company, a new distillery focused on great flavors and a warm environment.  They love the way spirits taste, but more importantly, they love that they bring people together to make memories, build bridges, and crystalize the moment.

Opening in Spring 2020 in NE Portland.  Follow @aimsirdistilling