Tread carefully

Beedie Executive MBA alumnus Jim Hamlin on creating his online hiking community.

As any active West Coast resident will testify, the Pacific Northwest region is a veritable treasure chest of exceptional outdoor activities, with breathtaking trails that almost demand exploration. It is a passion for hiking in this beautiful area that spurred Beedie Executive MBA alumnus Jim Hamlin on to create a platform for others with similar interests to connect and engage with like-minded individuals.

Hamlin is the founder of ClubTread.com, a web-based hiking community with over 18,000 members in the Pacific Northwest who connect and share experiences through the site’s discussion forums and wikis, in addition to facilitating social events such as hikes and dinners.

Founded in 2001, Hamlin started the site with the aim of creating a community for hikers to interact – somewhere they could find hiking partners, or share information on trails, which at the time of the site’s creation, were not readily available.

The site began as a close-knit community, with members establishing personal relationships with each other, regularly conversing and sharing stories and photos of their own hiking experiences. Since then, the site has grown exponentially, evolving into a very different community of diverse individuals with a vast cumulative knowledge of hiking.

“When ClubTread started, the Internet was just beginning to take off, and up until then people would need to connect by joining a club in order to meet people with a common interest in hiking,” says Hamlin, who graduated from the EMBA program in 2008. “The site brings together people with a wealth of information about hiking in BC and the Pacific Northwest, and it opens up a lot of opportunity for other folks who can access this information. People see the experience someone else has had and want to check it out for themselves.”

While Hamlin’s IT background was useful in creating ClubTread, it has also enabled him to develop several web-based businesses. Hamlin is the co-founder of Paradigm Shift Solutions, a technology company offering several packaged law solutions without the cost of actual lawyers. The company was named one of BC Business Magazine’s Most Innovative Companies of 2011.

Paradigm Shift Solutions operates three different sites: ContractTailor.com, an online contract drafting system; FiredWithoutCause.com, which provides provide legal advice on wrongful dismissal cases; and FairDismissal.com, which helps employers understand the legal issues surrounding employee dismissals.

Hamlin met his co-founder, Chilwin Cheng, on the Beedie Executive MBA, where the two were paired together in the same small working group. Cheng, a lawyer originally, and Hamlin decided to combine their talents to create a solution to the worsening problem of limited access to justice.

Meeting Cheng while pursing his Executive MBA justified one of Hamlin’s main reasons for undertaking the program. “I wanted to pursue the EMBA because of the diverse background of individuals in the cohort,” he says. “I wanted to be exposed to the breadth of knowledge of people in industries like HR, shipping, manufacturing, and legal services. On the EMBA you have some fairly senior folks who are highly regarded, and being exposed to their experience on different topics was great.”

Over the years Hamlin has hiked across a wide selection of terrain, from volcanic terrain in Hawaii to colder regions in Alaska, as well as many trails closer to home such as North Vancouver’s Lynn Headwaters, which he cites as a personal favourite. However, despite so many ongoing business interests, and a burning desire to take advantage of the West Coast’s numerous outdoor pursuits, Hamlin is determined to continue to find time in his busy schedule to attend to ClubTread.

“ClubTread is definitely a passion project – it’s not really revenue generating, but I do it because it interests me,” says Hamlin. “I’d feel a pretty big hole in my life if it was gone. It sounds funny, but for a lot of members it’s almost a part of their daily lives. I almost feel an obligation to keep it going.”