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On this week’s episode

  • On this week’s episode of You Have a Cool Job, we talk to Jake Urban, who works with a very specific force of nature–avalanches. Jake educates people on navigating backcountry terrain through his company, the Jackson Hole Outdoor Leadership Institute in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
  • He teaches avalanche courses for recreational learners like backcountry snowsports enthusiasts, as well as the professionals: ski patrol, mountain guides, avalanche forecasters, even avalanche course instructors themselves.
  • With 25 years in the industry, including search and rescue experience, Jake shares how it all started when he saw a lack of formally trained avalanche educators, and decided to do something about it.
  • Jake talks about the upward trend of the industry as more and more people try their hand in backcountry sports, and how the fine line of staying safe in the backcountry is a blend of science and psychology.

About the show

You Have a Cool Job is a podcast hosted by Taylor Sienkiewicz from Peterson’s. The show highlights professionals who have a unique, interesting, uncommon, or otherwise cool job.

Our goal is to motivate you and show how interesting, fulfilling, and anything-but-average your career can be, and we’ll do this by talking with people who took a path less traveled. We ask these fascinating individuals how they got to where they are in their career based on their education, experience, and influences;  why they love their job; and lots more.

Want more?

If you like what you’re hearing, check out these resources to get plugged in.

For more episodes of You Have a Cool Job, visit our YouTube channel. View other podcast blogs here.

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Learn more about Jake’s work here.

Have a nomination for the show? Drop a line here.

Photo of an avalanche slide taken after one of Jake’s courses deemed the terrain unsafe. Photo courtesy of Jackson Hole Outdoor Leadership Institute on Facebook.