Meet the All Out Staff

In the spirit of all things love and community, I felt like I should post a little blog on the current All Out Events team, so that when you see them around, you can say hi.

The key to our staff is that we are looking for people like us – who think the vision and the job is super awesome, love the difficulty of the evens, love the people that attend, and never whine or complain about doing anything. We look for people who do the extra mile, and most of the staff come out of volunteering for us and being super stoked not for the dollars, but the experience. That’s why you’ll find our events are always filled with good vibe – it starts with the staff.

First off, there’s me and Yishai:

Me: Kristin Tara McNamara and then there’s Yishai Horowitz. We make up the partnership that is All Out Events. I’ve been helping Yishai with his events since before there was All Out Events, but I officially got on the LLC paperwork last August as a full partner. And while we’ve been friends for years and years and years, we’ve been dating for two years and as of two weeks ago, he gave me a shiny rock for my left ring finger, so one of these days, it’s gonna be Mr and Mrs Horowitz. Or, McNawitz to our friends.

Yishai’s full time job is the events business, which is why he’s more recognizable, but we are also both Executive Directors and founders of SLO Op Climbing, the country’s first non-profit bouldering gym. That was our first business partnership and his ideas compared with my penchant for marketing and financial management worked there, which is why we are working on All Out together. In addition to that, I’m a part-time English professor at Allan Hancock College. Whew.

We also have two super cute dogs, Australian Shepherds. Because you needed to know that.

And then there’s Blake Rowan:

I couldn’t find a good one of just him, so you get a photo of his lovely fiancée, Maren, also. Blake has been our number three in everything we do for a long time. He is also the volunteer manager at our climbing gym and we sometimes talk about getting a big homestead and having our houses and Aussies and such on it together. Blake is a tennis pro and finishing up a business degree at Cal Poly. He’s also a super road and mountain bike dude, along with being a climber.

Aarone (sounds like Erin) Livingston:

Aaronne is an old friend of Yishai’s from their days working at a summer camp together. (In fact, that sweatshirt is for the camp: Gold Arrow Camp. She is about the most on it, sweet, and lovely person you’ll ever meet, though it makes it hard for me to describe myself with her around – I used to be the only girl, and then I was the only girl with red hair, but she wins on “redness.” She is married to a great guy and owns the heck out of the day of registration management. We would be lost without her.

And we have Rich Besco:

Rich helps us out on the day of events – he usually does all the heavy lifting and such and he’s really great in a pinch at handling crap that's less than ideal. He’s a really great, stable guy  with a good heart and we’re so glad to have him. I don’t really know what Rich does for a day job, but he also has a fancy delivery job at night that gives us lots of awesome stories. Busy man!

New this year:

Nate Lewis -

 

Here’s Nate at last year’s Mud Run, which until I saw this photo, I didn’t even know he was there. We tapped Nate, who used to be a pro downhiller but is now going to school, to help us build the downhill mountain bike course for our Ancient Peaks Mountain Bike Classic, but he was so enthusiastic and awesome about everything, we asked him to be a part of the team. He helped out immensely at the adventure race in May and he’s going to manage the run course for us at this weekend’s tri.

Ryan Tarver -

Ryan is also a super athlete, having competed in our adventure races and blown the top competition away with his ability to keep up without knowing what he was doing. He works for Lezyne (hence the shirt) and is always around at our events and so he’s started to volunteer his time with whatever we need. And we are SO glad to have him.

And our satellite crew:

Owen Richardson -

Owen has worked with Yishai longer than I have, for other people as well as Yishai’s event business. He was Y’s right hand man until he finished up at the community college here and headed to Chico to finish his degree. He comes down when he can to help with operations and he has served as race director for our sprint adventure races a few times.

Matt Pearce -

Matt lives up in Chico and has worked with Yishai and Owen as a medic at a number of events. Here he is in his truck of stuff. He is a volunteer dispatcher and tech whiz.  He works for the Butte County probation offices and is a funny guy to spend time with.

And there you have it, the core workforce behind making All Out as awesome as it can be.