One of the great things about Doba is that I believe we’ve made changes when and how necessary to keep the business growing and evolving. When I announced to the company that we’d been ranked #23 on the Inc. 500 list, I presented “23 Things That Got Us Here” and “23 Things That Will Get Us To Where We Want To Go”. The only thing on both lists? Change.

We’re making some more changes at Doba. Blaine Nielsen is going to take over my job as CEO. We’ve been moving in this direction for about a year now. We took a big step in that direction a few months back when Blaine became the President and COO and I added Chairman to my title. Blaine does the day-to-day details, the metrics, the accountability, the management of Doba and our team extremely well. I’m going to continue to be Chairman and President for Doba. And focus on 30,000 foot view strategic initiatives and progress by providing that input and direction and vision to the rest of the AWESOME executive team we have at Doba. (learn more about Doba’s Board and Exec team) I’m also going to be heading up the process of adjusting and moving Doba’s product ‘up-market’. Watch for that next year. The nice thing for us about not having outside investors in Doba is that this is a plan that I came up with and that I presented to the other cofounders and worked to get into place.

Change is not easy. But for me, change is fun and something that I embrace with both arms wide open.

So here’s to Change. I’ll leave you with a few quotes I drummed up about change:

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. — Confucius

When you are through changing, you are through. — Bruce Barton

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery. — Harold Wilson

It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory. — W. Edwards Deming

Damn!!! I think I’m going to start wearing tuxes every day to work. Just because I LOOK SO GOOD!!

Since this alone is enough to keep your mind reeling over the weekend, I’ll wait till next week for more Inc 500 Conference cool stuff.

I’m back from my backpacking trip to the Wind River Mountain range in Western Wyoming. You can read a full trip report and see lots of pictures at www.jercore.com

The highlight of the trip for me was clinging to the summit of Fremont Peak:

At 13,745 feet, Fremont Peak is the 3rd highest peak in Wyoming. It’s only 59 feet lower than the highest peak, Gannett Peak, also in the Wind Rivers. I don’t use the term ‘clinging’ lightly either. The wind was gusting over 40 MPH, and there was a sheer cliff just below me. But I wanted to make sure I touched the highest point on that mountain.

This was a big personal accomplishment for me. It’s the highest I’ve ever been (by 1,996 feet). It’s only the second Class 3 — (Class III – climbing, often on steep rock or snow. Handholds and footholds must be utilized to make upward progress. Injury inducing falls of up to five or six feet are possible. You must use your hands to make upward progress.) — scramble I’ve ever done. Our basecamp was over 12 miles into the backcountry and then it was an additional 4.5 miles of hiking and 3,300 feet of elevation gain from that basecamp to the summit. In short: it wasn’t easy to get to where that picture was taken.

When I got back, I got thinking about how the process of reaching a summit can apply to business. So over the next few weeks, intermixed with other posts I’m sure, I’ll be posting my thoughts and ideas that draw from what I learned on my most recent adventure to the mountains.

It’s good to be back. But it was sure good to be gone too.

I’ve found a system that works well to keep me going 110 miles an hour. (should that be 110%? - either way I guess it means going and going all out)

I take at least one, sometimes two, 4-6 day long trips a year. I’ve negotiated with my wife and family so that I can make these trips work. I look forward to these trips as a way to recharge and regroup very much. I purposefully plan trips that long so that I can disconnect from the world, from Doba, from everything really.

One way I make sure that I can really disconnect is that I head out into the middle of nowhere. Places where cell phones don’t work. Dark Spots on the Map.

Over the years, I have gone on some amazing trips with a really good group of guys. I decided to chronicle our travels (or travails as they may be) on a website. So I jumped onto Wordpress.com, setup a blog, picked a template, used Picnik (one of the greatest services I’ve ever used) to edit some pics, and about 5-6 hours later, www.jercore.com was up and running:

For this trip that we leave on tomorrow, I rented a satellite phone and we’re going to try and do daily dispatches from the backcountry in the Wind River mountains. So if you want to follow along, subscribe to the RSS feed from www.jercore.com.

I’ll be back and posting again here the end of next week. Don’t worry about me though. I’m not afraid of the dark.

Three weeks ago I launched out on an Adventure Buddies trip with my daughter Kaitlin. I took her backpacking for the first time and she absolutely loved it. We drove up the Mirror Lake Highway into the High Unitas about 90 minutes from where we live and we backpacked 1 mile into Wall Lake.

Did I learn anything from her on this trip? You bet. The mosquitoes were bad on this trip. As bad as I’ve ever seen. We had only hiked 1 mile. If I were alone, I would have bailed. But she wanted to have the ’sleep over’ part of the trip so bad. So we stayed by the lake in the sun and with our repellent and a slight breeze we were fine for a while. But as evening progressed, they started swarming. Again, we were only 1 mile from the car. But I really wanting to let her experience her first night in the backcountry, so we headed to the tent. I knew we’d be in there for about 3 hours before it was dark enough that she might go to sleep. So we hung out. Took some pictures (she even took one of me with our massive Nikon digital SLR - see below). Told some Dillie-Willie Bird stories. And had some really amazing daddy-daughter time. The next morning, she literally jumped out of her sleeping bag and yelled, “Dad, it’s daytime! It’s time to wake up! We had a sleep over!” And then looked over at me a little bit later and said, “I love you too, dad.”, without me having said anything to her. That’s when my patience all paid off 100 times.

So when on an Adventure Buddies trip with a 3 year old, sometimes you have to be really patient. That’s a lot like business. When you look forward, seems like you’re not moving at all. When you look backwards, you’re completely blown away by how much you or your company has done in the last year. Patience is key. Kids are great, they teach us more than any adult could ever even come close to.

Here are some pictures of our adventure: