Helping great ideas thrive since 2016. We relentlessly guide, inspire, innovate, and generally make life better for our partners.
Personally and as a team, we volunteer with nonprofits, advocate for public lands, and give to environmental causes as a 1% for the Planet member business.
Erik started skiing at age 1 when his dad pushed him around the yard on some homemade planks. Having improved since then, he now prefers to ski volcanoes, mountain bike in the desert, and climb very small rocks. Before founding Bonfire Collective, Erik spent 10 years as a marketing and communications pro in the outdoor industry—as digital editor for Alpinist and Backcountry magazines, and as marketing director for the American Alpine Club. Erik is also co-founder of Bluebird Backcountry, the world’s first inbounds backcountry ski area. He believes that leaders in the outdoor community have the power and responsibility to inspire movements that will advance recreation and environmental causes.
The daughter of an international business owner and a flight attendant, Sunnee was taught the power of the outdoors and exploration at an early age. Sunnee brings 18 years of advertising experience to Bonfire Collective, with expertise growing competitively positioned brands, transforming businesses, and crafting evocative stories. Sunnee brings the power of exploration into everything she does – whether concepting an out-of-the-box strategy for her clients, or backpacking deep into the Himalayas, she believes people are at their best when they align their passion and purpose.
Erin is originally from Ohio but left the midwest after graduating from The Ohio State University for the sunshine and trail running of Colorado Springs. After a stint in Jackson Hole and Portland Oregon, she is currently exploring for a new home base (suggestions welcome). She spent the majority of her career at advertising agencies in paid media planning and buying. Erin believes in using her brain power for good, helping brands who care about spending time outdoors get the most out of their media budgets. You can find her roaming around the West with her dog Forest searching for the best take-out, surf spots, and ski lines.
Jonathan grew up in the Rockies of Montana, spending time year round in the mountains. While he relied on skiing as a way to survive the long winters, Jonathan found playing in the outdoors as an excuse to adventure. His connection to the outdoors led to a brand storytelling career in sustainable energy and the outdoor industry. From being a brand manager at Sunrun and The Dyrt to becoming a drone pilot and videographer, Jonathan covers a wide range on the storytelling spectrum. When not creating branded content and playing outside, you can find Jonathan roaming in the garden or wailing on the drums.
Sara grew up amongst the cornfields and white cedars near the Fox River on the lands of the Potawatomi Tribe. These days she prefers looking out over the mountains from 10 pitches up or with a snowboard strapped to her feet. After graduating from University of Michigan, Sara headed west to Portland and started Saradipity Media, a one-woman-show helping mission-driven brands and nonprofits amplify their voices. She has more than a decade of experience in writing, marketing, project management, event production, and nonprofit management. She takes sick pleasure in systems and spreadsheets and can always be trusted to keep stoke levels soaring. Although she frequently refers to her van as home, Sara currently resides on Maui to appease her ocean-loving Aussies (husband and pup).
Born and raised on a family farm in western PA, Jeannie’s love for the outdoors was intrinsic. After graduating from Penn State, hunting and fishing in the Laurel Highlands turned into trail running, rock climbing, and freediving on the tropical paradise of Guam. She spent three years living the island life and building a worldwide nonprofit organization aimed at providing outdoor recreation to the military community. Whether it’s creating financial reports, launching social media campaigns, or leading groups of novice hikers through the jungle, Jeannie’s enthusiasm gets it done. She believes that forging a connection between people and their environments is essential in building a foundation for positive change. When she’s not busy keeping the office organized, you can find her slaying social media for her nonprofit, letting off steam in the boxing gym, or chilling out on trail.
Born in Florida, Justin grew up sailing in the Gulf of Mexico. After graduating college with a BFA in Graphic Design, he moved to the West Coast and found his love for the mountains and developed an obsession with the desert. He has more than a decade of experience designing for various companies across logo and brand, apparel and merchandise, and passion projects centered around music. He moved to Golden from San Diego with his wife, two daughters and frenchie: Disco. While he misses the waves, he’s stoked to have access to some of the finest climbing, camping and mountain biking in his backyard. He is driven by culture and raw experiences. He believes deeply in the human need to connect with the outdoors on a consistent basis–it fuels his soul and thirst for life.
David grew up along Lake Michigan, hiking its woods, climbing its dunes, and kayaking its shores, before heading westward in search of bigger playgrounds. David owns and operates Mojave Creative Lab and has spent the last decade designing for various outdoor brands and organizations, including REI, Otterbox, K•Swiss, the Professional Ski Instructors of America, and the American Alpine Club. Today, he lives in Denver with his partner, Tara, and their two dogs, where they split time at home and working from the road. David believes in the power of raw, meaningful stories; the outdoors and its wild people inspire David and his work.
Matt grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he learned to rock climb, mainly on the crystalline boulders of the Sandia Mountain foothills above town, where he’d go bouldering each day after school with friends. He moved to Colorado in 1991, and is currently based in the Boulder area, where he is an active first acentionist on the local sandstone and granite. Matt is an avid reader, mainly of magazine articles, and loves to deconstruct how his favorite writers string phrases and sentences together, to try to improve his own craft; he holds a BS in journalism, and a master’s degree in creative writing-English, and was once nicknamed the “Grammar Hammer” by coworkers for his grammatical exactitude. One of his favorite aspects of being an editor is helping other writers realize their voice through optimized storytelling: cutting away the chaff to get to a story’s emotional and sensory core.
Liz grew up in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where she couldn’t get enough hiking and trail running along the Appalachian Trail—that is until she moved to Boulder and discovered rock climbing and digital marketing. Now most of her year is spent chasing the best climbing conditions, from the New River Gorge to Rocky Mountain National Park, while helping outdoor brands create community on social media and make the most of their advertising budgets. When she’s not climbing or diving into campaign data for Bonfire clients, you’ll find her reading dystopian literature and listening to science podcasts while hiking around looking at rocks.
Journalism degree in hand, Julie bee-lined to Santa Fe, where it all started at Outside magazine. A Midwesterner by birth, she soon headed north, becoming a Coloradan by choice. Intentionally evolving her skill set to keep pace with warp-speed industry changes, Julie’s 20-year career has ranged from penning stories on people, places and products for adventure, sports and travel publications to brand storytelling and content marketing for organizations in the outdoor industry. Is it work or is it life? The two fuse while she’s trail running, mountain biking, snowboarding and chasing two boys around the beloved mountains she’s grateful to call home. Julie believes that the stories we tell well can inspire, influence and incite change in our world.
Adam was born and raised in Central Indiana, where he spent his childhood befriending cows and splashing around in creek beds. After studying at NYU, he began his finance career in San Francisco. Adam was captivated by the access to world-class outdoor destinations like Yosemite and Lake Tahoe, spending nearly every moment of his free time in these playgrounds. Eight years, 31 national parks, and 29 countries later, he still finds himself aboard too many planes and taking too many photos. Through his work, Adam strives to inspire others to get out of their comfort zones, explore, and experience the beauty of Earth’s wild places. He believes that sound strategic direction, compelling imagery, and an engaging story have the power to affect meaningful change.
Shae has been hopping west since she was a tot, from the UK to New York to Michigan, landing in Colorado where she’s currently soaking in the sunshine. She has spent the last 11 years building strategies and campaigns for consumer brands and B2B companies. When she’s not meeting with you on Google Meet or wandering outside, she’s a music junkie, dancer, master airfryer, gamer and voracious consumer of social media trends (ask her to show you the latest TikTok dance).
Kassondra grew up in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, testing toy concepts for the greater good at the Hasbro world headquarters (you’re welcome). Eventually, she found out about a playground called Colorado, and weaseled her way in by taking a job as a crime reporter at The Gazette in Colorado Springs. Kassondra broke into the outdoor industry as an editor for SNEWS (now Outside Business Journal) and later went freelance to road trip all over the West while testing hiking and camping gear for product reviews. Her work has been published by Travel Channel, Outside, Backpacker, The New York Times, The Denver Post, Gossamer Magazine, Flow Magazine, and many others. Now, Kassondra is an adventure travel writer and editor slow-traveling the world in search of the perfect home base. She’s currently testing out London, where the city trekking is 10/10.
Barbara grew up in northern Michigan, where she developed a healthy appetite for outdoor adventures and the thick skin needed to survive those brutal winters. Not long after graduating from Michigan State University with a degree in Advertising, she made her way to Vail in pursuit of a bigger playground and sunnier skies. From Patagonia to Ski.com to Protect Our Winters (POW), she’s spent the last 15 years in various marketing capacities within the outdoor industry. In her five years at POW, she helped lead and grow the organization to become an impactful, world-recognized NGO that went from a team of two to 12. Forever in pursuit of that work/life balance, she’s currently a freelance marketing consultant and writer, working for clients ranging from NGOs and marketing agencies to Salesforce consulting firms. Barbara believes what’s good for people and the planet can also be good for your bottom line.
Corey grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where she learned to set a table properly and dance the Charleston. That was before she discovered mountains. Corey moved to Boulder, Colorado, to pursue adventure and outdoor writing. Her work has appeared in Climbing, The Mountain Project Journal, Alpinist, and Elevation Outdoors, and she’s carved a niche for herself identifying plants and writing about privies as the Assistant Skills Editor at BACKPACKER Magazine. She believes spending time outside makes us all better, kinder, more passionate people, and that’s exactly what the world needs.
Every summer, Nicole’s mother would take her away from Florida on national parks road trips out West where Nicole fell in love with hiking and the outdoors. Later when she attended the University of Florida for her BA and MBA, Nicole developed her passions for rock climbing and digital marketing. Nicole is grateful to now live in Los Angeles where she doesn’t have to drive eight hours to climb. Nicole consistently helps the Bonfire team optimize ad dollars to achieve high ROAS and conversion rates for causes that matter. In her free time, she volunteers with the Ladies Climbing Coalition hosting trips and classes.
Jesse is a communications expert and ghostwriter for executives and entrepreneurs. He is the founder of Tinyideas.org, whose clients include Fortune 100 CEOs and Silicon Valley’s top venture capital firms and tech startups. As a ghostwriter he has authored more than three national bestsellers. Originally a dirtbag climber in lieu of college, Jesse went to school when he realized he might climb 5.13, but he couldn’t add it. (“Five plus thirteen,” he says, “turns out to be eighteen. Who knew!?”) After finishing a Master’s at Dartmouth College, Jesse began his career at the prestigious San Francisco firm SNP Communications and later held senior-level posts at Facebook and Dropbox. He believes that nothing is more rewarding than helping great people and their great ideas succeed. In his spare time Jesse continues to climb and is an avid whitewater guide.
Sarah, or Woody, as her friends like to call her, started mountain biking, whitewater kayaking, and skiing in the hills and rivers of Southern Indiana. After running a small business in Nashville, she based out of Colorado for 10 years. There she spent more than 200 days each year on the road living in Vana White, her 2006 Sprinter, as the Executive Director of 5Point Adventure Film Festival. Woody is now an Instigation Engineer at Industry Nine, utilizing her business, management, and mechanical acumen to drive operations and apprentice as an engineer. She believes in the power and change that the outdoors can provide every life.
Born and raised in New York, Pete found his roots in the quiet solitude of the Adirondack mountains and on the elegant bone-white conglomerate of the Gunks. He founded and directed the first-ever officially sanctioned professional competition climbing tour in the U.S. and was an early evangelist for competition and indoor climbing, pointing the outdoor industry towards the counter-intuitive opportunities presented by global urbanization. In recent years Pete has found an outlet for his creative energy through constructive disruption on the international level, living or studying business in the U.S., U.K., China, Brazil, and Switzerland.
Elizabeth has called the West home for more than 20 years and can’t imagine living without mountains in her backyard. When she’s not riding a bike, sliding around on skis, or adventuring with Roxy the dog, Elizabeth focuses on brand and content strategy that helps outdoor companies get the right messages to the right people in the right ways. Her work has been critical to the growth and success of nonprofits including People for Bikes, Boulder B-Cycle, and Camber Outdoors. She also advised many outdoor and lifestyle brands as Client Strategy Director at the creative agency Walden Hyde. Elizabeth believes passionate people can change the world through storytelling, and she loves to help them do it.
