A number of charitable organizations offer programs where you can train and compete for a cause.
Do your non-cycling friends think you’re overly ambitious (or insane) when you tell them you’re going to ride 100 miles in a day?
Eric Swaidner has one cool job: he designs bike components for SRAM.
The Company
SRAM Corporation is a global bicycle components manufacturing company headquartered in Chicago with locations in the U.S., Germany, Taiwan, Portugal, China, Ireland and the Netherlands. Their Colorado Springs facility is focused on product development for RockShox and Avid, the world’s market leaders in mountain bike suspension and brake systems.
The Start
Swaidner has been riding a bike since he was a kid and racing since the age of 15, including racing professionally in his 20s. His gear-head mentality, not to mention his degree in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue, landed him a Manufacturing Engineer position at RockShox in 2000, shortly after he had relocated from California to Colorado. “My end goal was always to make a living working on bikes,” Swaidner explains. SRAM purchased RockShox a few years later, and Swaidner advanced to a position as a Design Engineer and Development Team Lead. His teams are typically comprised of 6-10 individuals from the U.S. and Taiwan, and projects can span anywhere from 12-18 months.
What’s Cool About Your Job
As part of his job, Swaidner travels around the world to test his product designs. He traveled to France, for example, with former World Downhill Champion Greg Herbold to participate in the Free Raid Classic, an annual bike festival. But Swaidner contends that the coolest thing about his job is that he gets to challenge his body and his mind. “The combination of using my engineering background, learning valuable business skills and creating a product that I am passionate about is what gets me out of bed every day excited to go to work,” he says.“Traveling around the world and riding in beautiful locations just sweetens the deal.”
Top Three Reasons You Like Your Job
Swaidner feels that he has found the perfect environment to combine his love of cycling with challenging, meaningful work. “SRAM employees share a drive to succeed, and a passion to create exciting products,” he says. He is particularly excited about his latest challenge, a new product development project with Zipp, a high-performance wheel manufacturer recently acquired by SRAM. Finally, Swaidner feels like his role has a direct impact on the quality of people’s riding experience. “It feels good knowing that we make products that improve the user’s health, mobility and enjoyment of our outdoor world,” he says.
