Chasers

On this episode of Chasers podcast, we had a conversation with Nika Nour, executive director of the IGDA Foundation. The IGDA Foundation focuses on improving the lives of game developers by making game development a more diverse and inclusive community.  Nika has an intense passion for gaming; but interestingly, her love for video games didn’t start with developing them. It started, from a very young age, with playing them...until eventually, she stumbled upon the vast world of video game development.

On this episode, we spoke to Gabi Fleury, a conservation biologist. It’s a field that not many people know about...in fact, Ryan and I hadn’t even heard about it before this interview! What’s most unique about Gabi’s story, however, is that they knew they wanted to work with wildlife, especially in Africa, since their early childhood.

On this episode of Chasers, we sat down with Jackie Shao, a culinary student. Her story is particularly interesting because she pivoted paths several times, from being a mechanical engineer to a project manager at Microsoft, to finally landing what she thought was her dream position - a program manager at Apple - before deciding her true dream was to pursue a career in the culinary industry. Her journey truly shows us that it’s never impossible or too late to chase a passion. For her, in fact, it all started with a simple love for figure skating and physics.

For this episode of Chasers, we interviewed Matt Yang. He’s a fashion designer, who decided he wanted to commit himself to fashion school and a serious career in the industry after he had essentially finished an entire Bachelor’s degree at NYU. Matt’s curiosity toward fashion, however, began much earlier. It followed him all the way up to his adult life...until he could ignore it no more.

In this episode of Chasers, we got a chance to sit down with Michael Pace, a country musician known for his high energy act that captures the rugged blue-collar act of traditional country while maintaining the atmosphere and lore of modern country. What's interesting about his story is that he grew up in suburban Massachusetts and spent his entire life cooking and everything that's not singing.

On this episode, we talked to Jessica Park, a genetic counselor. Now, I know what you might be thinking...what’s a genetic counselor, and what do they do? Honestly, we hadn’t heard much about genetic counseling before talking to Jess either. The field is still in its infancy and it’s not too well known yet...

On this episode of Chasers, we got a chance to talk to Nathan Graber-Lipperman. He’s actually born just a few years after the official millennial range cutoff, but he’s working on something that’s really relevant to millennials. Nathan is the founder of Unplugg'd, a venture where his goal is to allow participants to set up meetups known as Unplugs, disconnect from social media, and share good faith dialogue with each other by diving deeper into certain issues or topics they care about. His entire life, Nathan has always been interested in building and exploring all sorts of new ideas. He started his first business as just a young student in middle school, selling t-shirts and soon after got involved in reselling sneakers.

On this episode of Chasers, we sat down with Finn Howell, a software engineer at a healthcare tech company called One Medical. Perhaps the most amazing part of her story is that she’s one of the extremely few females in the entire software engineering field.  And, like most people we interview, she didn’t really have a desire to be a software engineer at all...until she stumbled upon it in college.

To start off season 2, we got a chance to talk to Kristine Rodriguez. She’s the founder of Declarative, a sustainable knitwear line. She creates all the garments herself and is incredibly passionate about it. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly, she didn’t actually start out as a knitter though. She originally went to the Rhode Island School of Design to study graphic design...until she took a class her senior year that changed everything, and made her realize her real passion was elsewhere.

In this episode of Chasers, it’s our last one of the first season. To close it out, we got a chance to interview one of Ryan's friends from High School, Mike Nicolia. Mike has a passion for making people laugh, and fittingly, he is pursuing a career in standup comedy. It took him a while to build up the courage and finally make that jump into the comedy world, but the seeds were planted from the moment he was a kid. Check out his page here: https://mikenicolia.com/

On this episode of Chasers, we talk to Ryan White, an incredibly passionate barber. He’s actually the barber that I regularly visit in Dallas, Texas.  However, Ryan didn’t start off cutting hair or have the ambition of doing so. He had a rough upbringing and just jumped around from job to job trying to find what he enjoyed...until one day, he went to a barber shop that suddenly planted the idea of cutting hair in his head. Check out his website: https://www.beardedbastardbarbershop.com/

We got a chance to talk to Iqra Beg! After graduating, Iqra wasn’t incredibly sure what she wanted to do. So, she joined Teach for America and went to teach at a school in Dallas, Texas. After spending some time teaching and experiencing all the challenges that exist, she became determined to help every student get an equitable education, regardless of skin color or zip code. She has since spent her time in the space, fighting for this mission. The inequality in education is something that she herself even experienced during her childhood.

In this episode, we interview Thom Wall. He's considered one of the top 40 jugglers in the world, has been part of CIRQUE du Soleil, and even founded his own publishing imprint. Interestingly enough, he never envisioned himself getting into the entertainment industry or doing any of these things. To learn more about Thom, check out his website and his latest book: http://thomwall.com/ https://amzn.to/2EkVDcY

Welcome to our first episode of 2019! The beginning of any new year is where people often set new goals or resolutions. For those of you looking to make 2019 your biggest year yet, I think you’ll find this episode to be quite motivational. We actually got a chance to talk to Mari Llewellyn. She dedicates her time to Mari Fitness, a company empowering women with workout videos, photos, nutrition guides, resistance bands, and all other types of fitness material. Mari has gone through so much with the business, both ups and downs, but in a few short years, has amassed a following of 470,000 people and turned it into a multi-million dollar company. Her incredible story begins from the moment she found out she was moving to the United States.

On this episode, we sit down with Isaiah Wafer, an up and coming DJ and producer. He started off at Clarkson University as a history major, but left halfway to pursue his dreams in music. Like Isaiah, many millennials secretly aspire to make art-related fields their primary focus in life. The greatest challenge, I think, is creating a stable source of income out of it. Isaiah talks to us about how he dealt with this, as well as other obstacles he has faced in chasing his passions. His journey in music, though, began in a sort of unconventional manner.

On this episode of Chasers, we have a bit of a different story. We talk to Emma Seaver, who was the first person in her family to ever go to college. Being a first-generation college student, she always dreamed of having her family watch her as she walked across the stage to get her diploma. She spent five years working towards her degree. Just when she thought graduation was around the corner, she was told that unfortunately she hadn’t met the requirements to graduate for her environmental science and policy major. After some reflection, she made the difficult decision to walk away from college without her degree. She entered the landscaping industry and quickly fell in love with it. It was a perfect fit, because from a young age, she had always been passionate about gardening and landscaping.

In this episode of Chasers, we speak to Sam Ravech. At 22 years old, Sam Ravech is currently the youngest play-by-play broadcaster in AA baseball. He recently graduated from Pepperdine University with a Bachelor's degree in broadcast journalism. He was raised in a household that loved and valued sports with his father, Karl Ravech, the host of ESPN's baseball tonight. Sam dreamed of following in his father's footsteps and during college did play-by-play broadcasting for Pepperdine Athletics. Sam has interned at NBC CT and ESPN, where he provided play-by-play commentary for the Little League World Series. His experience and drive led to a career start in Richmond, Virginia where he currently serves as a broadcaster for Richmond Flying Squirrels, Double A  Affiliate of the SF Giants. 

In this episode of Chasers, we speak to Kristin Kagetsu who is the co-founder of Saathi. From a young age, she has been passionate about empowering girls and women to make a difference. It’s this passion that led her to co-found Saathi. Saathi is a company that produces 100% biodegradable and compostable sanitary pads. The pads are made from banana tree fiber, which is an agro-waste. What is amazing about Saathi is their completely sustainable manufacturing process from beginning to end. Tune in to Kristin's story on how she transitioned from working as an engineer to pursuing her passion. This episode was recorded Spring 2018. 

In this episode of Chasers, we speak to Joseph Alim who is the co-founder of Scholarjet. When Joseph found out he was admitted into Northeastern University, he could not be more excited! That is...... until he found out that the cost of his education was going to be more than $60,000 per year. Joseph's strengths were more in engineering and science. This made it difficult for Joseph to apply and earn scholarships because the majority of them are writing based. Joseph then decided to divert his path into working for a Fortune 500 company and instead, help co-found Scholarjet, which is revolutionizing the scholarship process. 

In this episode of Chasers, co-hosts Ryan and Nihar share the story behind the podcast.  Please Subscribe to our show! Follow us on Twitter & Instagram @chaserspodcast.