mulefam: Marc Bowers
Offroading began for me with my first Jeep purchase in about 1991. A clean 1977 Wagoneer started a lifelong love affair with Jeeps and backcountry travel. By 1993 I was working as a technician at Town and Country Jeep and met a bunch of like minded individuals building and wheeling Jeeps every weekend. By 1995 I was running a built Jeep XJ and had become admin for the 'Jeep XJ list' (remember lists?) as well as writing for a national website doing tech and trail articles. Eventually I was published in 4 Wheel and Offroad magazine after covering a now long gone 4x4 event up on Vancouver Island. It wasn't long after that I started working at ARB in their tech department about 1998. I spent several years there learning from some of the best in the industry and took my first trip to Moab for Easter Jeep Safari. I left ARB in mid 2001 heading to California to work with a company that was importing Rooftop tents, racks and accessories - it was just cool camping equipment in those days. Overlanding had yet to coined. Fast forward a few years and I had married, moved back to Seattle and gone back to ARB, this time to manage their US tech department. ARB had grown dramatically over the years and the scope of products had grown right along with it. As the liaison with engineering I learned a ton about suspension development, locker technology, bumper design and so much more. I also had the opportunity to travel and meet some of the most highly respected people in the industry.
Eventually I decided it was time to move on again and went to work for the guys over at Nitro Gear and Axle. My role was in sales management and that meant a lot of travel to events and see customers. Going to King of the Hammers and LSFEST were a couple of highlights of my years there, but the travel took a toll on my family and eventually I found myself looking to be closer to home. That's how I ended up becoming part of the Mule Family, just 10 minutes from home. It's been a great journey getting here and i'm very pleased to be able to bring my years of experience to a company with such a diverse and talented staff.