Meet Cody
Cody Meendering has been in Bozeman since late 2013. He grew up in Iowa but lived in Mississippi, South Dakota, and Washington before making it up here. He graduated with an Associates from MSU and has been with us since 2019.
As our Installation Manager he’s got to have an engineering and math side to see how all the pieces fit together, but he gets to be creative with those pieces and that’s something that’s written all over his interests and hobbies as well.
Growing up Cody wanted to be a blacksmith, in part because he knew he could never have a bad day, as he could hammer out any frustrations he had. He hasn’t started a shop (yet!) but has made everything from bottle openers to coat racks to a fireplace poker set. That ability to see a finished piece in unfinished metal is a skill beyond many of us but one that just comes naturally to him.
Another example of creativity + mathematics is his love of rock climbing. There’s the harsh realities of the rock: you have to up a certain ways safely. But there’s also the artistic side: you get to decide what ways make sense for you given the day, the weather, and your mood. Cody also loves being able to get an amazing view much more quickly than you can by hiking. He first got started by meeting some friends at a crag and then got hooked as soon as he was on the rock. He’s been climbing three days a week for the last nine years and doesn’t look to stop anytime soon.
Climbing those rocks has also made him think about a future dream gig as a mountaineering guide. In a way that’s a chance for him to take his own experiences and share them with others. He wants to see more of the world before becoming a guide, however, and that makes sense as that also will up his technical proficiency and context he can give his clients when he does start guiding.
If you didn’t get that Cody loves to spend as much time as possible outdoors yet, what he did for his birthday last year should convince you: he went up to Fairbanks, Alaska and got to see the northern lights on his birthday at midnight! He ranks it as a special moment, right up there with his 3M certification, which made him particularly proud because some people thought he wasn’t ready or couldn’t do it.
With all this love of the outdoors we were interested to see how he would respond to the “what would you want on a desert island if you were stranded” question and he didn’t disappoint. “Knife, flint starter, and metal pot,” he said without hesitating. At first we thought there might be some metalworking to be done but it’s actually much simpler than that: these items would help you survive long enough to build a raft and get back to civilization.
The knife can help you make a shelter and catch and clean food
The metal pot would be used to boil water
The flint would be used to start a fire for your metal pot
As usual, the simplest answers are the best.
If you want some rock climbing/metalworking/survive on a desert island skills, come by the shop anytime while Cody is at his day job: making our customers happy by putting his exacting and creative tendencies to work for everyone’s benefit.