December 4, 2017
48 view(s)
Employee Spotlight- Adam Kittell
I spent my early childhood in Tennessee and then moved to Ohio for my formative years. My dad was the leader of our Cub Scout troop when I was little; he taught me about camping and enjoying the outdoors. During my angsty teenage years my interests were elsewhere, but at the end of high school my friend introduced me to mountain biking and I rediscovered nature.
I grew up taking art classes and loved to draw, so I went to ITT Tech for an AAS in Multimedia and then to The Ohio State University for my BFA in Art & Technology. At OSU I started climbing at the campus gym and took to it quickly. I found out about a group called The Mountaineers Club and signed up for a Spring Break trip to Moab, Utah with them. They taught me to lead climb on Wall St and I fell in love with bouldering at the Big Bend boulders. I spent the remainder of college going on climbing trips with them to the Red River Gorge and the New River Gorge, and made a few return trips to Moab.
After college, I started doing some freelance design work but my heart wasn't in it so I started reevaluating how I wanted to spend my time. I decided Ohio was too flat and boring and that I needed to be out in nature more. I heard that Asheville, NC was a cool place for nature lovers, so on a whim I packed up all I could fit in my car and head there with no real plan. I got a seasonal job as an instructor for a wilderness therapy company and had some fun playing in the Blue Ridge Mountains for a few months. After the gig was up I determined that Asheville just wasn't the place for me long term and head back to Columbus to reevaluate. I spent the winter there working at Gander while I figured out my next move. My heart was always yearning for the next trip to Utah, so I lined up a job at another wilderness therapy company out there and head west wiuth as many bikes as I could fit on my Element. During my off-days from guiding, I did tons of climbing and biking, lived out of my car, traveled, and made great friends.
When I got burnt out on guiding I still wanted to stay in Salt Lake City, so I lined up a job in the warehouse at Backcountry.com with the intent of working my way up in the outdoor industry. I worked there for a couple of years and moved up the ranks a bit. I learned enough from my various roles there to land a job as a Buyer at Liberty Mountain. I have been enjoying everything here so far and look forward to the future!
Name: Adam Kittell
Time working for Liberty Mountain: Since July 2017
Job title: Buyer Update- Adam moved to the Marketing Department in early 2019, where he is the Marketing Communications Specialist.
Short description of what you do at Liberty Mountain: I buy products for- water sports, winter sports, electronics, biking, fitness, clothing accessories, and k9 to make sure our inventory is filled and relevant. Update- I manage our athlete team, organize presence at tradeshows and events, handle reviews/PR/sponsorships, manage social media accounts and web content, and work with HR on internal marketing initiatives.
What do you like most about your job? Playing with the gear!
Active in the following activities: Climbing, mountain biking, slacklining, hiking, drawing, roller derby, and making things.
Favorite activity: Bouldering
Favorite outdoor areas: Moab, UT and New River Gorge, WV
Piece of outdoor gear you most wish you had: a whitewater kayak
Most interesting place ever lived: Out of my SUV
Top-five favorite movies: Tough call. I guess some of my go-tos are Can't Hardly Wait, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Jurassic Park, Dazed and Confused, and Seven.
Top-five favorite books: The Harry Potter series minus 2 of them, but which….
First memory spending time outdoors: Playing in the woods behind my house in Tennessee with the neighbor kids.
Inspirational Hero: Kyle Maynard. The dude is a quadruple amputee and still ascended Mount Kilimanjaro without any prosthetics.
Dream vacation: Deep water soloing and relaxing in Mallorca, Spain.
Favorite food to eat outside: Burritos
Cake or pie: Cake
Dogs or Cats: Cats as a species, but I love the dogs my wife forced upon me. Charlie is a boxer/german shepherd mix and Toki is a boxer/pitbull mix.
Anything else that the world should know… I workout-danced on stage with Richard Simmons in one of his videos.
