Employee Spotlight - Taybor Abplanalp
Taybor Abplanalp refers to himself as a tinkerer. He’s a maker of things. This is great at Liberty Mountain, where Taybor works as a Product Designer. He brings with him experience from a lifetime of crafting for his home and recreation. He even attempted to start his own business making bags for parents. His large breadth of hobbies is ever expanding and although he doesn’t specialize in any one activity, his enthusiasm for trying new things has yet to run dry.
Taybor came to be at Liberty Mountain by attending an Outdoor Retailer tradeshow. At the time, Taybor had his options open. He had ambitions to generate capital to launch his company making bags for parents and was learning from his acquaintance how to approach suppliers at Outdoor Retailer. However, as they walked past the Liberty Mountain booth at OR, Taybor remembered a comment made to him in passing that he might be interested in working for a company called Liberty Mountain. Taybor stopped at the booth to make an inquiry. He was put in contact with Jake Hirschi and ended up joining the team shortly after.
In his day to day, Taybor spends time designing. The type of designing depends on the project at hand. For example, he helps design new products for Liberty Mountain’s house brands (Peregrine, Cypher, Olicamp, and Outdoor Designs) and he has a big hand in designing the packaging that many Liberty Mountain products come in. He tries to put himself in the shoes of the end consumer. He spends a lot of energy planning the ethos of the packaging. He says that the angle he takes approaching this challenge is a bit different working for Liberty Mountain than his other experience, but it’s a welcome challenge nonetheless. One project he particularly enjoyed was choosing the color of lenses for the new Cypher Glacier sunglasses product line, set to launch Summer 2021. He enjoyed learning about the color theory and played around with lots of different options before choosing the final draft for these new products.
You could say that his home is massively important to him because of his family and how they make their house a home. When asked to show off his gear closet, he joked that it’s mostly made up of tools although he is still a long way from completing his collection of those. Taybor talked about how he enjoys making improvements to his home. He highlighted a lantern cover that he is currently designing and creating as a decoration. Taybor has said that the thing he’s most proud of is his children. He calls himself a tinkerer, but the quality of his craftsmanship seen around his home shows how important the space and the people are to him.
When it comes to hobbies, Taybor hasn’t found something he won’t try. He takes ice fishing trips through the winter and recently tried ice climbing. He has spent time working for wilderness therapy camps, making camping and backpacking high on his lists of activities he loves. He even made a backpack from what appears to be wooden branches and pieces of leather. As long as he has the resources to try something new, it’s fair game to jump in with both feet. In the meantime, he’ll continue tinkering and designing for his home and his work. He’s happy for the opportunities provided to him at Liberty Mountain, he’s learned a lot of new things and is eager to continue to grow the Liberty Mountain house brands and himself personally.