Why "Ophir."
Ophir Pass sits above 11,000 feet in Colorado's San Juan Mountains, near Ouray and Telluride — a narrow, exposed shelf road cut into the mountainside in 1881 to reach the mining camps below. It's still one of the more demanding routes in the state: short, technical, and unforgiving of a wrong line.
It's also where I've spent a lot of the time that isn't devoted to security programs and board decks. The mountains are where I go to think clearly, and Ophir Pass in particular has become a kind of personal marker — a route worth respecting, not fearing, once you know it.
The name of the pass itself traces back further, to Ophir, the legendary biblical land of gold — the same reason gold-mining towns across the American West borrowed the name. That layered meaning is exactly the point: a route built to protect something valuable, that takes real experience to navigate well.
That's the job. No organization needs someone shouting about every exposed ledge on the mountain. It needs someone who's made the crossing, knows where the real drop-offs are, and can get the business through to the other side — without unnecessary detours, and without misjudging the line.