Jake Carsten began his career in the bicycle industry in 2011, working on the IMBA-Subaru Trail Care where he was instrumental to communities from coast to coast representing, speaking, and teaching trail building on behalf of IMBA. Throughout his career, Jake has focused on developing his skill set and growing with the trail-building industry, most notably he has attended numerous training courses through PTBA and worked with and learned from a wide variety of top trail designers and trail-building firms in the industry. Jake has also worked as an instructor trainer in the Bike Instructor Certification Program (ICP) and obtained certifications to teach mountain bike handling skills at all three levels, which he’s found invaluable for understanding and planning skills progression on trails and in bike parks. Prior to working in the bike industry, Jake accrued 13 years of experience managing consulting teams and facilitating strategic transformations on US and global business software implementations for IBM Business Consulting Services and DA Consulting Group. The once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the IMBA-Subaru Trail Care Crew and dive into the trail-building industry was a dream he couldn’t pass up. Rather than return to the corporate world, in 2012 Jake founded his own trail consulting firm (Dirt Dojo LLC), delivering a wide variety of trail planning and construction contract services that included site assessment, trail assessment, conceptual planning, field design, and trail construction. In January 2018, Jake joined Rock Solid Trail Contracting, leading the planning and design efforts at Rock Solid for four years until he returned to run Dirt Dojo full-time. While with Rock Solid, Jake led planning and design efforts on notable projects such as Split Rock Wilds (Beaver Bay, MN), River Mountain and Two Rivers Park (Little Rock AR), Mt. Fitzgerald (Springdale, AR), Devil’s Den State Park (Winslow, AR), Mt. Nebo State Park (Dardanelle, AR), Mount Magazine State Park (Paris, AR) and the Slaughter Pen Bike Park (Bentonville, AR), to name a few. Jake specializes in helping clients identify their project goals and vision, assess property feasibility, and develop conceptual plans and designs that align with a client’s vision, budget, timeline, and planned trail user experiences. In addition, Jake helps clients navigate the end-to-end trail development process, including but not limited to assistance with bid packages, trail contractor selection, and project management. Jake currently resides in Del Rio, Texas.