Name: Eric Grimes
Position: Director of Client Services
Hometown: Golden, Colorado (born in Minnesota), “I was robbed of my “Native” bumper sticker.”
Education: University of Colorado, Buffaloes
How long have you worked at Placewise? Seven years, this month.
What is your favorite bar or restaurant in Colorado? New Terrain Brewery, I usually ride my bike and others, they ride their horses. It sits at the base of Table Mountain and the scenery is amazing. You feel like you’re in the middle of the mountains, but you’re only 15 minutes from Denver.
Where’s your favorite place to vacation/favorite thing to do in Colorado? Steamboat Springs, it is a mountain town that isn’t touristy and corporate. They have a river that runs through the town that you can tube down. Beer is mandatory, I’ve been told.
Best meal you’ve ever had? I should give props to my wife. She’s Italian and any meal she makes is better than anything you can get at a restaurant. She makes a killer bolognese.
One place you would like to go to use up your vacation days? I would go back to Europe, our favorite spot was The Cinque Terre along the coast of the Italian Riviera. We rented an AirBnB and walked down to beach everyday. There’s 5 little towns and a hiking trail that winds through them. I had to carry my son up like a 1,000 steps as we hiked through three of the towns.
Tell me about your family? I have two boys, 6 and 9. There is lots of basketball and baseball going on. I coached my son’s basketball team last season.
My son wrote a book, and drew all the artwork, about him and his buddies and their adventures. My wife and I had all the pages printed out, we formatted it and assembled the book by cutting and gluing it all together and finished by having it laminated. It is now being held in the school library available to be checked out.
Favorite Red Rocks concert you’ve ever been to? I saw Plant and Page, 8th row, in 1998 (for the kids, that’s Led Zeppelin). My first concert was Big Head Todd and The Monsters, who also happens to be Wooga’s (our VP of Operations) cousin.
Go-to artist on Spotify? Whenever I need to focus and get something done, I turn on EDM. Armin van Buuren, Porter Robinson and Marshmello lately.
Favorite Tv Shows? With streaming, I watch so many TV shows it’s hard to remember them all. Breaking Bad is the easy answer, but the show was amazingly acted. My wife and I binged 24 when she was pregnant with our first son. We joke that he was almost named Jack Bauer. Always Sunny is just ridiculous. Scrubs was a weekly favorite pre-streaming. Zack Braff is an underrated comic.
If you pursued another career path, what would it have been? When I was young, I was interested in the movie business, it even guided my major at first, Media Studies. I loved the escapism of movies and was fascinated with the behind the scenes. Funny thing, I have only been to maybe one movie a year in the past 6 years. Kids will do that to you.
Favorite Placewise moment? At Christmas we have a legendary white elephant. Before my time there was a shake weight that somehow became a yearly regift. I got stuck with it one year then passed it off through trickery. Due to unusual circumstances, it ended up with me again the next year. At that point I decided it should be a trophy and I colored it silver and gave it a stand. John Dee (our Pres) purposely stole it that year and it still sits on his office shelf today.