Chris Christian
PROFESSIONAL, Media and Digital Imagery
North Carolina
A note from Chris to me follows this paragraph. Chris's description of himself is entirely accurate. Chris is one of the most energetic, discerning and capable people we have ever encountered. He is also a real gear freak, and so we consider it a large compliment that Chris likes WeatherWool as much as he does! It was Chris who introduced us to Dutch Ressler, proprietor of DutchWare Gear, where they will make our Custom Slot Buttons. Dutch is as much of a gear fanatic as Chris (which is truly saying a lot!) and I am really lucky that both Chris and Dutch sympathize with someone being so fussy about a button! At left, they are pictured together in Idaho in their Anoraks, with Chris in Lynx Pattern. Dutch took the photo of Chris on the ATV. The SERENE photo is a self-portrait by Chris taken on a weeks-long solo outing in the Idaho wilderness.
I am truly honored, and take the role very seriously. I have a lot of plans for WeatherWool and am so grateful that I get to be a part of the testing and feedback loop and evangelism.
A couple of decades ago at Norfolk Southern I became the Lead Enterprise Architect in IT, and in that role I come up with visions and directions and then lead positive change in the organization as I motivate teams to realize the vision. It takes a lot of charisma and influence to change some of the railroad cultures with some of these visions. But what has always served me well is to also roll up my sleeves and be very intimate on the details that can make or break the vision coming to be.
The other area where I excel on both sides is art/creativity, yet very methodical/scientific. From what I have experienced in life is that usually someone is either art minded or scientific minded, rarely does someone excel in both. I have been blessed with the ability to not only Engineer something against a set of requirements, but I can also tap into a very creative and artistic side to add beauty to the solution. Both my mom and Papa had that ability as well.
Now, I am a "form follows function" kind of guy though, meaning I focus on meeting requirements and function first, but as those are met, I will add the beauty or artistic qualities once the requirements have been met. I would classify your Anorak as a form follows function type of product. It's beauty is in it's function and simplistic design. I'm betting that making one out of WeatherWool should be icing on the cake.
I will leave you with something that made me chuckle last night as I was doing more research into the origins of the Anorak and its design elements.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary another definition for the word Anorak is:
"A boring person who is too interested in the details of a hobby and finds it difficult to meet and spend time with other people". LOL
Here is how they used it in a sentence. "There are enough facts and figures in this book to keep even the most obsessive Anorak fascinated for hours."
So I guess I gravitated to the Anorak design, because I myself am an Anorak (except the boring part which I completely disagree with and I'm more of an extrovert) lol.
Have a great day and weekend :-)
Chris M. Christian
TrailName/YouTube/IG: Hangs4Fun
Adventure Outdoors Productions
This note (and linked video!) Chris sent to me in March of 2021 will also give a real sense of his personality, and the breadth and quality of his work:
I produced this short film, with better than broadcast quality.
I filmed it on location at that "Wilderness Study Area" (aka WSA) that I want to get turned into protected Wilderness status. My passion project for my video production company is going to be a documentary on that WSA to hopefully get it turned into a protected Wilderness.
That short film is just one of my adventures there, not the documentary.
If you have a newer tv (smart tv) or device with the YouTube app, this short film will be one of the highest quality images and sounds you've seen on it :-)
Chris's son will also be wearing a Lynx Pattern Anorak for Military training.
3 September 2022 --- Ralph