Ken started the company with Joe in 2009 under the impression that eventually there’d be free pizza. Ken is a design nerd and furniture designer with a passion for photography and collecting weird things, like fruit stickers. He’s an active field trip enabler and enjoys bribing the team with Trailblazers tickets and empty promises that someday we’ll all get to see his expertly curated apartment. Check out some of his furniture designs here.
Sean is a man-bear hybrid who rules the woodshop with the ultimate weapon: love. His heart is so big he doesn’t have room for any other organs, and he’s got a PhD in Silliness. Alright, he does have a brain, but, it’s part of his heart -- it’s like a heart-brain. His heart-brain is SMART. This guy is a space camp graduate and a product design genius! He’s also got an amazing collection of embarrassing stories to make you cringe with joy.
Kevin, Grovemade industrial designer extraordinaire, is a man at the height of his particular imaginative talents. That is to say that he’s in his prime. Known to his friends as Magiva (majēva), he’s powered by avocados, senzu beans, and tins of sardines. Kevin’s an inquisitive guy who’s dedicated to learning and expanding his skillset. With an earthling-first attitude, he’s here to design as well as to improve his sleight of hand.
Christopher is our accountant extraordinaire. A recent transplant to Portland by way of The Last Frontier (Alaska, not space), Christopher and his family moved here expressly for the rain, and they’ve not yet gotten their fill. He’s a gaming enthusiast - Magic, Minecraft, Chess, to name a few - who holds only one game in ill regard, which will remain unnamed for the time being. A former bookstore denizen, he moseys the stacks of Portland’s bookstores and libraries when he needs to unwind.
Victor, aka Victor Sweet, aka Victor Strong is not only one of our awesome production team members but he’s also one of our most powerful Grovemaders. Victor’s secret for superhuman strength? A steady diet of hip-hop, rap, R&B and heaping scoops of white hot magma. When through with his morning routine of deadlifting small cars and tiny houses, you’ll find him fishing the banks of the Columbia River, where he reels in trolley-sized carps with his steely bare hands and a visage of extreme aplomb. When not performing unmatchable feats of strength, you’ll find this dynamo enjoying the many tasty tidbits found far and wide in our fair city.
At age 25, Yuji discovered that the animated series Adventure Time contains the truth about all things in life. Each morning, he wakes up and shouts into the void, “What’s going on? Have we seen into the future?” He’s a self-taught web programming wizard who makes Grovemade.com come to life. His hard work behind-the-scenes makes countless internet purchases possible everyday.
Nick is an accomplished toothbrusher. He used to do 20 pushups every night before bed, but he stopped a while ago and hasn’t looked back. Some of his favorite things are coffee, cooking while wearing aprons, throwing anything round, and music. Nick is our resident word-smith and idea generator and customer question answerer. He loves email subject lines and looking at numbers for a long time and then drawing graphs.
Alex is a friendly Schwab who hails from California. Splitting his time between production manufacturing and the administrative side of things, Alex brings the full force of his Big Nerd powers to his quest of getting things done! When not nerding out in the shop, you can find him backpacking throughout the wilderness of the Northwest. If you see him out there, be sure to ask for his best-of list of sci-fi and fantasy novels!
Uncle Fix-it-Phil is our resident luthier and master woodworker. He’s a lover not a fighter… but he might fight you if you try to steal his ramen or pho. The other day at lunch, he almost ate a spider. He hails from sunny California, by way of sunny Hawaii. If he’s not in our shop making our products shine and sparkle and work like a charm, you can find him in his own workshop, where he builds amazingly beautiful ukuleles (check them out here). Or peacefully floating above the golf links or the rivers where he communicates with fish and other wildlife via energy beams.
Christian is a jack of all trades, but don’t call him “Jack”. Event planning? Check. Building everything? Check. Resident wakeboarder? Check. Producing a vodka brand? Check. He came to us from Lake Tahoe and the University of Oregon Product Design program, where he says he built a particle accelerator that fits in your pocket, but we think he was exaggerating. In his spare time he advises on ideal burger toppings and talks about his Subaru.
Dixie’s an independent spirit chock full of the dignified class of the Midwest, though she’s laid claim to having been raised by a pack of gray wolves. A former theater geek who loved it too much to do it for real, you can find Dixie splitting her time between the customer experience side of things as well on the shores of production manufacturing. In all, Dixie’s a true DIY’er who loves to cook (gumbo is her go-to), sew, papier maché, and sing. She also hates to drive.
Nozomi is a world-traveling musician and number wizard extraordinaire. She makes sure all of our business details have nice snug little homes where they don’t get lost or swept under the rug. In a past life, she was a scientist, and we all feel much smarter when she’s around. Her ideal Sunday includes Dim Sum - but she wouldn’t tell us about the rest of the day, because she says she really likes to be mysterious, so there you go.
