A little about me...

Hi Gaians! My name is Craig, and I'm here to help Gaia become bigger, better and more fun. I introduced myself on the forums a while back, but I thought I'd share a little about myself here, for those of you who didn't see my post.

I grew up in Connecticut. My dad brought me to Japan for a week when I was thirteen years old, and I fell in love with the place. I found a high school that had an exchange program with a Japanese high school (this is the 1980s, and that was a pretty rare thing), moved to New Hampshire to go, and then spent my junior year living and going to school in Tokyo. Hands down, the best year of my whole life. I got to live with 3 different homestay families. I still remember reading manga in the back of my math class back in 1984! (No one in the US had even heard of manga or anime back then!)

Anyway, for the next 5 years I found every way possible to get back to Japan for free. I went back 5 times before college ended!

Then I tried to figure out what to do with my life. I almost became a journalist. I was an assistant teacher in a 2nd grade classroom- and almost became a teacher. Finally, the entrepreneurial spirit bit me and I jumped into a pretty small company that was growing fast. And I had awesome bosses and friends and the work was fun. And I found out that I was really passionate about business- if the company is making a cool product or service that offers real value to people.

Recently, I spent a year looking at over 200 start-ups trying to find something truly great. There are so many companies out there that are pretty good and will probably make good money. But they have no soul! They don't matter in people's lives.

And then I met Lanzer, Locke and the rest of the team and realized I'd found what I was looking for. Gaia's founders built their dream hangout. Their hearts are all about making something great for Gaians. Gaia's got that special magic that separates good from great.

In short: I want to help build a great company that I can tell my kids about. It sounds corny, but it's how I feel. I think I've found that at Gaia.

We have an amazing team- the most passionate, fun people to work with on the planet! But we've still got a lot of work ahead of us. I'm excited about all the great stuff we'll be doing in the years to come, and I'd like to thank all of Gaia's members for making this the greatest community on the web.