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00:13 Chris Ronan: Hey everyone, this is Inside Geocaching HQ, the podcast from Geocaching HQ in Seattle, I am Chris Ronan, you might know me by my user name, which is Rock Chalk. Thank you for having a listen to our podcast. On this episode another chance to get to know one of my fellow lackeys Jennifer Arterburn is the Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs here at HQ. She has a super interesting background and does the kind of work that you might not realize is necessary for a game like Geocaching. Hope you enjoy our talk, here we go.
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00:56 CR: Well Jennifer, let’s just start by giving the quick overview about what your job description is here, your title and your job description here at HQ.
01:05 Jennifer Arterburn: My job has evolved quite a bit in the time that I’ve been here, but I started about seven years ago, and I came on really because Bryan Roth who is now our President and is also an attorney was really at a place where he was starting to take on more of an operational role and didn’t have as much time to do the legal work. So when I came on, I came on to do legal work strictly. And then my role has grown from there, to include managing HR, managing learning and development, as well as facilities. And the legal work has remained the same. But one of the wonderful things about working here is that it is really an incredible soup to nuts, legal practice, where I get to do a little bit of everything.
01:52 CR: Yeah, that… I don’t think a lot of people know that Bryan is an attorney and that that must be interesting, to have an opportunity like that. This isn’t a law firm, but the fact that there are two people that are attorneys you guys can I would imagine bounce a lot of stuff off each other and learn from each other and all that.
02:10 JA: That’s actually one of the wonderful things about working here is getting to have someone who I can bounce ideas off of. I used to work in a law firm environment. Of course, you’ve got lots of lawyers there where you can have regular conversations, bouncing ideas off of each other and talking through legal issues. And I think being here alone would be sort of a lonely existence as an attorney. So it’s wonderful to be able to go in and chat with Bryan, our offices are very close, and I can just connect with him and talk through things. And so that is really helpful for sure.
02:39 CR: You are known in some parts as Gia rather than Jennifer.
02:45 JA: Yes [chuckle]
02:46 CR: Gia Coyne would be your full on screen name.
02:47 JA: As of late yes. [chuckle]
02:49 CR: Yeah it’s your on screen names.
02:50 JA: It’s a very recent development, for me actually. Yeah, we, well, two of us here, we’re fortunate to have the experience to help out with Mystery at the Museum. And the Gia Coyne moniker was actually very off-the-cuff spur of the moment, we were trying to decide what my name should be and one of our wonderful crew came up with that name, and I think it’s a pretty good one.
03:20 CR: And you…
03:21 JA: I’m actually considering changing my user name.
03:23 CR: Well, that’s… I think people would enjoy that quite a bit.
03:26 JA: We’ll see.
03:27 CR: And you have great experience to help you with that Mystery at the Museum project before you were an attorney, you worked in television in broadcast news.
03:38 JA: That’s right, yeah, I started my career in TV news, and I worked in a few different markets, anchored Alaska, Las Vegas and then most recently the San Francisco Bay area, and I was there for five years or so. And then I started to just wanna do something different and I ended up going to law school at night, and finished law school and then started work in a law firm like a lot of attorneys do, and after a couple of different law firms and some in-house experience at the Smithsonian, I found the job here, and it has been bliss ever since.
04:15 CR: I also worked in broadcast news, and I know a lot of people go into different industries after working in there, most of them do what I did they end up in communications or something like that. You were much smarter than any of us and much smarter than any us [chuckle] by having the ability, but how does one end up in… How did that interest in law come about from… Or was it there before you worked in the news business?
04:41 JA: Yeah, no, one, let me just first say, I am not much smarter than most of us. You know what? I think that part of being a reporter, so much of it is reading, writing, asking questions, trying to understand things and those skills translate well into law. And so when I was trying to decide what to do next, I was thinking about either a business degree or a legal degree and ended up going the legal route almost purely by chance really. I just thought, “Well I’ll just give this a try.” I was still working in my day job as a reporter, started going to law school at night, and even going to law school, I wasn’t quite sure that I was going to stick with it.
05:18 JA: But once I got out and I started working, I really enjoyed it a lot and decided to keep with it. I mean, I feel like I was incredibly fortunate as I was moving out of news because it can be hard to make that transition to have gone through law school and then to come out of it with a job. It was at a time when the economy was actually doing pretty well, and so that worked out well for me and then years later to be looking to leave the law firm that I was at, and to have the opportunity at Geocaching come up was pretty incredible. I actually started… My first day here seven years ago was on Valentine’s Day and it seems like such an appropriate first day now to me because I was just in love with this place from the very beginning. When I came in here to interview, it was pajama day, I think, and everyone here was in their pajamas and coming from a law firm environment that was just such a quirky switch to me, I thought, “Wow, okay, I need to work somewhere like this.”
06:22 JA: I had geo-cached before I interviewed but I didn’t know about the game until I knew that I was coming in for an interview. And so then, on top of finding this amazing place to work, to learn about this game and to get to understand what an incredible community is associated with it, and how much joy it brings to people’s lives, it was such a winning combination I just, I had to be here. And so, Valentines Day seems to me to be the most appropriate work anniversary I could think of.
06:52 CR: Yeah, that’s great, and as you were talking about that it made me… I can remember one of my first days here, and I also came from a corporate environment, and one of the first days there was a game night after work and I remember seeing Bryan in the kitchen with a ping pong paddle stuck in his back pocket, and just thinking to myself, “Yeah, that wouldn’t have happened at my old company.” It really crystallized for me, this is a very different type of a place here.
07:20 JA: It’s a whole different world for sure and a wonderful one.
07:24 CR: Yeah, absolutely. Before I came to work here just as a geocacher, I think I would have been surprised if someone would have said, “Oh yes, there are a couple of attorneys who work at Geocaching HQ.” Because I think, “It’s a fun game. What need is there for legal affairs?”
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07:40 JA: Yes, it is a fun game. You know what I would say is that, and I talked a little bit about the fact that my experience here is very broad, the breadth of legal work that I get to do is, it really covers everything. I do contract review work for our partnerships and promotions, travel and tourism. I get to also help to structure the way that we handle privacy issues here. The general data protection regulation, which went into effect in Europe last year, has had a big impact on us. Obviously, we always wanna be taking care with our users’ data and be very mindful of how much data we’re collecting, how we use it, how long we keep it. In addition to that, things that a lot of people don’t even bother to read like the terms of use and our privacy policy, consume a lot of my time.
08:30 CR: Yeah I’ll bet you, are you a person that when you download an app or register for a website, most of us click past that stuff. I would imagine you’re someone that gives it a little bit stronger of a look than maybe the average person.
08:43 JA: I do sometimes give it a look. I will say one of the things that I know about it, like everyone knows, is that if I want to use this app or whatever this service is I’m probably gonna have to agree to it. I’m not gonna start negotiating [chuckle] with Facebook about how I use their app. And so, I’m pretty quick, generally, to just accept as well, but I might do a little bit closer look just to see what other companies are doing.
09:09 CR: But certainly with the… We’ve got one just like they do, our terms of use and so forth, and that’s something that you and Bryan keep a close eye on and occasionally will make updates to that.
09:21 JA: Yeah, we’ll certainly be making an update, probably toward the latter part of this year to accommodate some changes in California’s law. There’s a new law going into effect January 1; the California Consumer Privacy Act. So we’ll be updating our privacy policy and our terms of use some time later in the fall, for sure.
09:40 CR: Using that as an example, and I would imagine it’s similar with other projects that you briefly mentioned in that overview, when something like the European privacy stuff comes up, I would expect that there’s a process where you need to learn about it and then also try to find out, “How does this apply to our business?” And then also, “How do we execute the changes that need to be made?” I would certainly think it’s very involved, but how do you go about learning about this stuff, and then eventually working your way through making the necessary adjustments that need to be made?
10:21 JA: Yeah. Fortunately, there is a lot of legal education available and there are certain associations that you can belong to that give you access to that education. A lot of law firms also put out various alerts and articles that are very helpful in terms of just initial research. And then we also rely on outside counsel a lot, especially in Europe, where I’m certainly no European law expert. And so, experts in Europe are really who we go to when we have questions.
10:52 CR: You mentioned Human Resources briefly there at the outset and that’s another part of your role here. We had Eileen on the podcast not long ago.
11:01 JA: Oh yeah. That’s right.
11:02 CR: And she talked a bit about getting a job at HQ and some of the great things about working here. But what are some of the responsibilities that come along with that for you?
11:11 JA: Yeah. Well, so I am, let’s see, I’ve been managing HR now for probably five years, I wanna say. In my role I get to have a hand in determining what our culture here is like, and part of that can be, who do we bring in? Who are our new employees? And I should mention that we actually have a number of openings right now, including Front-end Developer, React Native Developer, Senior Systems Administrator. And so, if you or someone you know happens to be skilled in one of those areas, or in one of our other openings, we’d certainly love it if you applied. But that piece, the hiring piece, is really key to determining what our culture looks like; that and also, how do we treat our employees? How do we talk to each other? We’ve worked really hard to make sure that we’re having honest conversations with each other, and to make sure that when we are setting expectations that we’re very clear about them and really communication is key to all of that. And so, that almost brings it full circle back to my background, which is in communications, really in essence, as a journalist. And so, getting to play the role of both legal, HR, they really do fit together into that background as a journalist.
12:37 CR: So how about geocaching? You’ve now been here, what, about seven years? You’ve gotten to do a lot of geocaching over the years. What are your favorite kinds of caches to go after? What do you enjoy most about the game?
12:49 JA: I think in seven years, I have done a lot of really cool caches. The one that probably stands out the most to me, and the one that really, I think, gave me a sense of wonder about the game is one that I did not long after I started here. And it was, I guess what I would call a gadget cache. It involved tools and, yeah, it just blew my mind really. I was like, “I can’t believe that somebody put something like this together and put it out in the world for people to find.” So I’ve enjoyed the gadget caches that I’ve done. But really, I have two young children, and patience is often at a minimum. And so, we typically do traditional caches. Often, I like to do them when we’re on a hike, and I use them as incentive, “Oh hey, there’s a geocache up ahead. Let’s keep going, just a little bit farther.” And it works more often than not, and so those… Generally, I’m a weekend cacher and typically traditionals. Every now and then I’ll do something a little bit more complicated. But I tend to like to do those with other adults.
13:55 CR: And you’re going to a big event here not too… Well, later this fall, right?
14:00 JA: Yeah.
14:00 CR: People’ll have a chance to see you if they would like, down in Georgia.
14:04 JA: I sure am. I’m really excited to be going caching. It will be my first major, domestic mega event other than the block parties that we’ve held here. And so, I’m really excited about it. With young kids, I really didn’t travel much the first five years that I was here. I just didn’t feel like I could get away. And now that my kids are growing up, I feel like I can start to travel more. And so I’m really excited to get down to Rome.
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14:29 CR: That was Jennifer Arterburn, aka Gia Coyne, Vice President of Business and Legal Affairs at Geocaching HQ, and Lead Anchor on HQ TV. If you attend the Going Caching Mega Event in Rome, Georgia, be sure to say hello to her. And as she mentioned, we have a number of current openings at HQ. So go to geocaching.com/careers to learn more. If you’ve got an idea for the podcast, send me an email to podcast@geocaching.com. In the meantime, from me and from Gia, and from everyone at Geocaching HQ, happy caching.
