GRP: Where Are They Now? – Gordon Vermeer

[The GRP: Where Are They Now? series highlights Green Racing Project alumni and the different paths they have taken since moving on from professional sport.]

This week we catch up with Minnesota native Gordon Vermeer, who raced on the GRP Nordic team from 2012-2015. Gordon grew up in Minneapolis and attended Dartmouth College, from where he graduated in 2012 with a mixed major in Economics and Math. In 2015 Gordon moved to Cambridge, MA and took a finance job in the forestry and agriculture investment space. The job and location was a good fit for Gordon. His job allowed him to venture outside of Boston into rural spaces while meeting with farmers and foresters. Gordon’s time in Craftsbury had connected him with rural communities and reinforced his love of the outdoors, so he was thankful that despite living in Boston he was able to stay connected in some capacity to rural living. Boston was also where Gordon’s now-wife Sarah and a number of their college friends lived, and he had previously completed a summer internship in the area and so was familiar with the city. Gordon and Sarah got married while living in Cambridge; a year later they moved to California and both began Master’s programs at UC Berkeley: Gordon in an MBA program, Sarah in Architecture. Both are on track to finish their degrees in the spring of 2020 and plan to relocate soon thereafter to the Twin Cities in Minnesota.

Why did you choose to come to Craftsbury? Why the Craftsbury GRP?

Really, the opportunity to join Craftsbury was a pleasant surprise and one that only came late in senior year. The incredible generosity of the program was enough to help me make that last minute plunge to give it a try and to pursue the Olympics.

Throughout college I really wasn’t planning on continuing to ski post-collegiately, but I had a really good season my senior year of college. I started talking with Judy about the possibility of joining, and the rest is history. I had actually already accepted a job offer elsewhere, so it was a big change in plans. Craftsbury was definitely the right fit for me with having the Dartmouth connection, being supported with travel and room and board, and having the ability to stay in New England, which was where I wanted to be. 

What were your favorite work projects or primary work contributions while at Craftsbury?

One of them was organizing and leading the Tuesday Night Race series in the summertime. My first year I just helped out—Bryan Cook was the “commissioner” at the time—and then in my second and third years I led the effort. It was a role that brought together lots of different types of work; it required everything from trail setting and maintenance to timing to writing for the website. And the best part was that the races involved such a broad cross-section of the Craftsbury community: old and young, experienced and novice, everyone from GRP to families with kids. Most of the locals I knew, I met through that job.

During the winter season it was great to contribute to the races that Craftsbury hosted and see what went into putting on a race in Craftsbury, how everyone was involved, etc. Toward the end of my time in Craftsbury there were two race series where I got to be a little more involved working alongside Sheldon with race organization and administration.

Do you have a favorite training memory or a memory of a favorite workout?

Over the last few years I’ve come to realize that most of the time when I’m working out, my mind wanders back to former episodes of training and racing, and I just kind of dwell in the memory of it. So for example, when I’m running on the trails around Berkeley, my mind will often wander back to training with the GRP on the Long Trail or the trails around the Center.

If I had to pick a favorite workout—or perhaps the one I remember most clearly—it would have to be some of the longest rollerskis we would do as a team, like the ones we would end at Lake Willoughby or the ones where we would link different sections together in East Craftsbury, Greensboro, Hardwick, etc. I think I probably remember those most clearly, and fondly, because it’s a style of workout that I don’t really do anymore.

On snow I have really strong memories of times of the year when the Highland Lodge Trail system would be open, and there’d always be a lot of excitement on the team to get a big group together to go for an OD.

Favorite memory of training with a teammate or interaction with a coach?

Since this is the week leading up to the Birkie, I’ve spent a lot of time remembering my former Birkies, and I especially loved my Birkie trips with the GRP. I skied the Birkie all three years, probably with a different group from Craftsbury each time, and I think we drove out at least a couple of them. So this week some of my clearest memories of Pepa and Nick are of the way they loved prodding us to get excited for this and other races. They found it entertaining how some people on the team from the Midwest like Bryan Cook and I got excited for it, and others, especially Nils, liked to pretend how they were not into it. Pepa and Nick loved to stoke those internal competitive fires. I think it kept things lively for all of us.

What was your favorite thing about your time in Craftsbury? 

My favorite part broadly was the overall culture of outdoor activity at the Center. I think this is obvious to everyone who’s lucky enough to be a part of it; it’s a special mindset that’s unique and hard to replicate, and I miss it a lot. And as I mentioned before, having such a broad mix of community members who are bought into that mindset makes it all the better.

What you wished you would’ve done more of while at Craftsbury? 

I always regretted that I never took the opportunity to have the talented heavy machinery operators teach me how to do that stuff. I always wanted Lucas to teach me how to run a PistenBully or Keith to teach me how to use the excavator. I wish I had taken the opportunity to do that when I had the chance, because it’s not every day you get to be around people who know how to do that kind of thing. Not that I really need those skills. But you never know.

What goals are you working towards? 

Finishing grad school for both Sarah and me is a big milestone. Business school has been really rewarding and challenging, but I’m pretty ready to move forward. So making this transition successfully is a big goal. We’re still both looking for jobs, but I’m expecting to stay in the natural resources space.

We’re also excited to start a family in the not-too-distant future. Pepa used to tease us about having a bunch of little blonde babies, so she’ll be happy to hear me say that. 

And then with moving back to the Twin Cities, I actually have skiing goals again in my life. I’m definitely looking forward to skiing more, and then seeing what it looks like to get involved in coaching or the racing scene again. But that will be a lot easier in Minneapolis than in the Bay Area. And obviously I have the goal of returning to the Birkie Elite Wave as soon as possible. The family goal may or may not be amenable to this.

Do you stay active in your sport, or have you found a new athletic or adventurous endeavor that you enjoy? 

Yes, I’ve stayed active in both skiing and a similar mix of dryland activities to what we’d do on the GRP. I’ve continued all of that, even including a little bit of rollerskiing, which is mostly geared toward Birkie preparation. I’ve forced myself, no, I’ll say I’ve enjoyed, putting on rollerskis. It’s probably been twice per year in my time in California. The big challenge is finding rollerski-friendly roads, that’s really hard here. I’ve done a fair bit of running; I ran Grandma’s Marathon in Duluth, Minnesota and then ran the Boston Marathon the following year, which I had always wanted to do. That one didn’t go so well—I went down with rhabdo at mile 24, had a little hospital stay—but lived to tell the tale. I also do a lot of road biking around here, and a little bit of mountain biking, too. 

And lastly, I don’t belong to a rowing club here in California, but I did belong to a club in Boston because I learned to scull while at the Center. Now I’ll just erg like once a week.

Any current hobbies?

Well, school keeps me really busy, which is good, but has limited my hobby time. Outdoor adventures are by far my main hobby still. As far as other ways of spending time, I wouldn’t call it a hobby per se, but I’m really involved in my church community, so that’s another big commitment outside of school and workout routines. But nothing else good to report on the hobby front.

Actually—I guess another thing would be following the World Cup. Most of my friends here think it’s ridiculous. Both Sarah and I both love it and have gotten some friends into it too, so we’re traveling with them up to Canmore to watch the World Cup Finals in March.

What advice would you give for current GRPers or professional athletes worrying about future career?

I would give two pieces of advice: 

One would be to make sure that you find the parts of the local community in Craftsbury beyond the Outdoor Center that you connect with and try to be present in those communities. I didn’t do this as much as I should have. I connected a bit with a local church and went to the elder home on a few occasions, but less often than planned.

The second one would be to definitely use the freedom you have—the travel and the down time—to stay curious about either the academic subjects that interested you most in college or the professional subjects you’re interested in for the future. You can do this by reading, taking courses online, and probably most effectively by reaching out to talk with people who share those interests. I think it’s possible to be totally present in the Craftsbury community and still think about what else excites you in the wider world. So just use the flexibility to do the reading and exploration of what interested you in college.

If you returned to Craftsbury to work but not as a GRP athlete, where would you be found?

Well I’m patently unqualified, but I’ll say working trails and maintenance with Lucas and the team. Also totally unqualified, but it seems like the summer sculling coaching is a pretty great gig.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Despite having made my first move, and then my second move, and coming up now on my third one since Craftsbury—so in some ways growing further from that time in my life—I think of Craftsbury often, think well of my time there, and especially well of the people. I always love hearing from you!