Employee Spotlight- David Mitchell

My father worked as an engineer for an oil company in Saudi Arabia for three decades, so my parents decided to raise children in a world rich with desert heat, zaatar bread, stray cats, schwarmas, and cultural experience.  Using Saudi Arabia as a home base, we travelled to many countries throughout the Middle East and Europe through my childhood and into my teenage years.  Family ski trips to Austria and Switzerland eventually ignited an unshakable passion for outdoor sports and I would later attribute my stubborn wanderlust to my parents’ child rearing methodologies.  After graduating from the University of Vermont with a degree in Environmental Studies, I decided the most ethical profession in which I could involve myself in was organic farming.  For the next 8 years, I spent the growing season fondling dirt and the snowy months indulging in a love affair with my splitboard.  After I realized the act of sustainable farming was unsustainable for me as an individual, I began a myriad of travels around the US that included, thru hiking, bikepacking trips, living out of my car while exploring isolated desert peaks, and exploring my limitations as an ultrarunner.  To fund my trips and afford my lifestyle, I would work in various labor positions as well as in gear shops.  Eventually I had an epiphany about the merits of life balance and decided to throw down roots in Salt Lake City.  These days I’m mostly seen running or biking around the Wasatch and exploring rarely trodden areas of the West whenever I can.

Name: David Mitchell

Time working at Liberty Mountain: 2.5 Years

Job title: Buyer

Short description of what you do at Liberty Mountain: My work consists of inventory management, product research, vendor and interdepartmental communication, and problem resolution.

What do you like most about your job? The opportunity to cultivate and build upon relationships with both co-workers and vendors.

Active in the following sports/activities/hobbies: Trail running, mountain/gravel biking, peakbagging, Nordic skiing, backpacking, and splitboarding.

Favorite activity: Spraining ankles, binge eating, and colliding into stationary objects.

Favorite outdoor areas: Utah’s West Desert, remote areas of Zion, the Adirondacks, Oregon Cascades, Arkansas Ouachitas, and Central Nevada ranges.

Piece of outdoor gear you most wish you had: 2019 Salsa Cutthroat Force

Most interesting place ever lived: Tasmania, Australia

Top-five favorite movies: I only have the attention span to watch 10 minute skateboarding clips on YouTube.

Top-five favorite books: Maps to the Other Side: Adventures of a Bipolar Cartographer, The Monkeywrench Gang, The World According to Garp, Wild Fermentation, The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

First memory spending time outdoors: Developing dysentery on a safari trip in Kenya.

Inspirational Hero: Reinhold Messner

Dream vacation: Silk Road Mountain Race, Kyrgyzstan

Favorite food to eat outside: I’m torn between gummy bears and Mike and Ike’s. Both have their place.

Cake or pie: It stresses me out having to choose between these two foodstuffs. Both, please.

Dogs or Cats: Old dogs and barn cats.