Kristen Fowler Garland, From Cambridge to Japan to Alaska

92-180 Kristen Fowler Garland

SPEAKERS

Will Bachman, Kristen Fowler

 

Will Bachman  00:02

Hello and welcome to The ’92 Report: Conversations with members of the Harvard and Radcliffe Class of 1992. I’m your host Will Bachman, and today I’m delighted to be here today with Kristen Fowler Garland, who some of you in Harvard would have known as Kristin Fowler. Kristen, welcome to the show.

 

Kristen Fowler  00:21

Thanks for having me.

 

Will Bachman  00:23

So, Kristen, tell us about your journey since graduating from Harvard.

 

Kristen Fowler  00:28

Sure. Well, I majored in East Asian Studies, Japanese, and so when I graduated, I could read materials for my thesis, but I couldn’t speak it. So, I was like, I put all this energy into learning this language. I should try and figure out how to speak it. So, I spent five years in Japan after college. I did two years with a Jet program, and then worked for a market research firm in Tokyo. And then that was really quite an adventure. I’m sorry. What’s the jet

 

Will Bachman  01:01

program?

 

Kristen Fowler  01:02

Oh, sorry. The Jet program. It’s a program through the Japanese industry of education, and they take English speakers from all the English-speaking countries and they embed them in their middle and high schools and have them teach conversational English.

 

Will Bachman  01:17

Oh, wow. So it’s

 

Kristen Fowler  01:18

a really, it’s a really cool program. There’s a wide variety of experiences that people have. It was very positive. I was out in a town on the western coast called Toyama.

 

Will Bachman  01:30

Okay, all right. It

 

Kristen Fowler  01:32

was really cool.

 

Will Bachman  01:33

And did you have a chance to work on your goal of learning to speak Japanese while you were there?

 

Kristen Fowler  01:39

I did. It was great. I I took lessons for those two years and was able to get fluency enough that my position in the market research firm was a fully Japanese speaking position. So it was pretty cool.

 

Will Bachman  01:51

Oh wow! What was it like doing a job search in Japan in in Japanese?

 

Kristen Fowler  01:58

You know, I’m trying to remember how I got connected. I got connected to this. It it was a foreign subsidiary of a company that is based in Massachusetts, and I got introduced to a gentleman that worked there, and I don’t remember how, but he was American, and so he hired me to do some writing and stuff for him for that job, and then he ended up leaving, and I ended up becoming a consultant, kind of doing data stuff there. So I actually learned how to use Excel in Japanese. So it was pretty crazy. All

 

Will Bachman  02:31

right, are there any specific market research studies that still stand out to you that you can remember? I love.

 

Kristen Fowler  02:39

Oh yes, well it was amazing because it was 95, and so in Japan, all of the computers, you know, and all the businesses were or servers like mainframes and stuff, and they had the clients. So it was the very beginning of Japan shifting over to networked PCs, and so Windows 95 had just come out, and so the computer producers were, you know, shipping all these new PCs. It was like brand new, and so we were tracking that evolution from mainframe to networked PCs. So it was a really interesting time. It feels very quaint now, But like the beginning of the internet too, you know. So like an email, like that was my first email, I think address or something like that.

 

Will Bachman  03:30

Tell us anything else about those five years in Japan, food, traveling around the country, meeting people.

 

Kristen Fowler  03:38

Yeah, it was really it was an amazing experience. I did a lot of travel in Japan while I was there. I I played field hockey at Harvard, and when I was in Toyama, I actually joined a field hockey club, an all Japanese field hockey club, and we would like do tournaments around the country. It was super super fun. Yeah, it was. I tried to immerse as much as I could, but what’s also really interesting is by the end of the five years, especially being in Tokyo, I got really, really overwhelmed by the city. It was just the just the population density was just you know mind boggling, and I started to feel really cramped. And so after five years, I was ready to kind of come back to the states and be in my own culture. Tell us

 

Will Bachman  04:26

one more minute about being on a Japanese field hockey team. Is it a bigger sport there? I don’t think I’ve ever seen just in a park or something a group of adult playing field hockey-it’s just you don’t see it that often. Is it more of a common thing in Japan? And what was like being? Oh, that’s

 

Kristen Fowler  04:47

a good question.

 

Will Bachman  04:48

Yeah, it is

 

Kristen Fowler  04:48

not. It’s probably kind of rare, like it is here. Like not a not a mass national sport, and I don’t remember how I got connected to it either. And one of the girls was on the national team, but they weren’t very good. They don’t ever qualify for the Olympics, so it’s probably considered. It’s well, it’s a small population country, right? So you have a less of a field, and then it’s not a huge sport. So I I can’t remember. It was kind of random that there happened to be a club in this prefecture where I was,

 

Will Bachman  05:21

but you would travel around with them, and I mean that must have been good for practicing your Japanese as well, right? It

 

Kristen Fowler  05:27

was really good for practicing because you know I had to figure out how to play and communicate playing, but then also we hung out, and it was really, really, really fun and a good social experience. So,

 

Will Bachman  05:39

wow, so fun. Okay, so how did that chapter end? What happened next after Japan?

 

Kristen Fowler  05:44

Let’s see. So I was in Tokyo, and funny. This is very funny. So I was dating a captain in the Air Force that I had met, and this it was like a multinational hiking club. So there’s a lot of foreigners, but a lot of Japanese in it, and I met him for that. And he got stationed to Alaska, and it was U.S.

 

Will Bachman  06:06

U.S. American. Yes,

 

Kristen Fowler  06:08

an American. Sorry. Yes. So he was at Yokota Air Force Base, and we’ve been dating long enough where it was like you didn’t want to just let it go, but it wasn’t really super long time either. So on a whim, I came with him to Alaska.

 

Will Bachman  06:23

All right,

 

Kristen Fowler  06:24

and that was an interesting phone call with my family. They live in Massachusetts, and they heard I wasn’t coming back there. But so arrived in Alaska, and I was looking for a marketing job, and I started. I got a job over the summer at REI, just kind of to meet people and to kind of have a little bit of money while I was on my job search, and just completely fell in love with Alaska and the people here. I grew up in New England; it’s just such a young state, and every almost everybody’s from somewhere else. It’s a very open place, and people kind of look out for each other in a way that’s a little bit different than the way I grew up. Just because everyone’s from somewhere else, they don’t have family, right? Maybe here, a lot of people, and so I’m looking down 30 years later. I’ve been here almost 30 years, so wow, yeah, I love it here. It’s just-I mean-the natural beauty, the adventure. Like, do a lot of outdoor sports. The business community is amazing. I’ve worked in marketing all these years. I’ve had my own agency since 2003, and it’s an incredible business community, very supportive business community, which has been also really, really nice, and part of the experience.

 

Will Bachman  07:45

Tell us about starting your own firm and about the evolution of your of your business there.

 

Kristen Fowler  07:50

Sure. So you know, I had a market research background, and then I had a job at a local ad agency here, and it was right when like online marketing was really taking off, so let’s see, 2000 between 2000 2003, and so I had a I had another job at a web development company as their marketing director, and it was also like when search engine when search engines were growing, and so search engine optimization was let’s say became a thing, and so I kind of learned how to do it on the job at this web company, and then decided to kind of go out on my own. And so I started in October of 2003 as a digital agency and with an emphasis on SEO, and just kind of grew from there. It was it was great. The timing was perfect because the other interesting thing at the time is that the tourism industry here is big, right? People visiting Alaska cruises that some sort of thing supporting that, and they’re they you know people come to Alaska. It’s like a trip of a lifetime, right? Most people don’t come back. It’s usually a one and done. I think our revisit rates around 20% So, all of these little Alaska tourism businesses, the cost to acquire a customer every year was very high. They had to do magazine ads or go to trade shows and that sort of thing, and so search in an internet search just completely changed the game for all these small businesses because the cost to acquire a visitor went down drastically, and so I kind of came on board just in time to you know I kind of was the lead in the state on that, and so I was able to develop my niche in Alaska tourism very quickly. Like some of my clients, I had like a had some flight seeing companies and like some zipline companies. Like 95% of their business started coming from their website.

 

Will Bachman  09:56

Wow!

 

Kristen Fowler  09:57

So it was really kind of fun. To make such a difference, right, for these businesses, and so I’ve been in tourism, like supporting mostly tourism businesses, and then I started doing web development about 15 years ago, and that was a little bit more of a wider net of small businesses. So yeah, and so I took a little interlude during COVID. I worked for an agency here since tourism business dried up.

 

Will Bachman  10:27

Right,

 

Kristen Fowler  10:27

but then I just I I I picked it back up three years ago, and so I’m doing. It’s more of like a consulting now. It’s just me. I had had six or seven people going into COVID working for me.

 

Will Bachman  10:40

Oh wow! Okay, what are some of your favorite insider tips on traveling to Alaska for those of us who haven’t made the trip yet?

 

Kristen Fowler  10:53

Um, I would avoid a cruise. It’s very, I mean, it’s very easy, right? Because it’s all handed to you, but it’s like very retail. It’s very there’s just the high volume of people. So there are definitely pitching my clients, but I have a couple of clients. They and they put together, you know, self guided packages for clients. So if they’re overwhelmed by the the logistics are crazy here, right? The dis like to go to Fairbanks, it’s an eight hour drive from here.

 

Will Bachman  11:28

Wow!

 

Kristen Fowler  11:29

And we can’t get to Juneau on the road system. There’s no road system, so like transportation logistics is very unusual and hard for people to probably grapple with. From it’s not. been here, so I think the tip would be to maybe try and do a self-guided vacation, but you know, get one of these companies like Alaska Tours or Alaska Tourn Travel to help you put it together because they will be able to make sure your itinerary is realistic and enjoyable because you could easily end up just being in a car like 80% of your trip if you don’t plan it right.

 

Will Bachman  12:06

What are the different segments of travelers to Alaska? There’s probably the the fisher the fisherman segment, the hunter segment, the whale watching segment. People who want to just like what what are the? What? How do you think about the different segments of of visitors?

 

Kristen Fowler  12:27

So there’s definitely fishing contingent. It’s a relatively small. You would be surprised. Relatively small, but passionate. Um, like those remote fishing lodges where people go out every year. You know, type of thing. Um, cruise is a half to two over half, maybe even two thirds of the visitorship to Alaska every year.

 

Will Bachman  12:46

Okay.

 

Kristen Fowler  12:47

Yeah, and a huge percentage of it’s down in southeast Alaska where Juneau is, and um, and then let’s see, there’s adventure travelers, right, to coming out and doing hiking and kayaking and and that sort of thing. That’s another small but passionate group. Winter tourism is growing. Aurora viewing is popular in the winter, but also really, really small. And then I think the other remaining kind of bigger chunk is that independent traveler. We call it an FIT. I forget what it stands for, but who’s not coming on the cruise, and is just kind of driving around, or you know, renting an RV or something like that, and doing a you know self-guided type of situation, and then visiting friends and family is also very very big.

 

Will Bachman  13:31

Okay, sure, all right. What about the people who come? I mean, I’ve heard of this from my son talking to his friends and friends of friends who come to work in the like the can salmon fisheries or something, right? Yep. The kind of college age kids to yep.

 

Kristen Fowler  13:47

That’s a big thing. I don’t, and I don’t hear about as much. I don’t know if it’s because I’m older and it was not my peer group, or if I know some of the fishery, the processing plants have closed like in my region, but coming out and working in a fish processing plant is really was really probably like live in a tent all summer. I just I like fish all summer. Commercial fishing is really big. I know some people who put themselves through college because they make huge money in the summer commercial fishing because they get a cut right of a boat, and so that is also really popular.

 

Will Bachman  14:28

I need to know what you’re doing. And then you you kind of left me hanging a little bit. You traveled to Alaska with this air force to stay with this air force. Oh yeah yeah

 

Kristen Fowler  14:37

oh yeah got rid of the air force captain very good. No more air. He

 

Will Bachman  14:43

brought you to Alaska, but then he flew off somewhere else. So, so yeah, what happened then?

 

Kristen Fowler  14:48

It’s just funny. It’s a very funny thing. Like many women who are here and stayed, they usually came with a guy. Okay, like a thing. It’s very. I was very cliche.

 

Will Bachman  14:58

Okay.

 

Kristen Fowler  15:01

But yeah, so yeah, and then I met my first husband, I think in 2000, and so I brought up one daughter. She’s 1819, So it was a really cool place to bring up a kid in Alaska. Was nice, and been doing that in my business, and I remarried in 24, no, 22, and yeah, I’m just doing all the things that all of us are doing this age, right? Kind of finishing up our careers and taking care of parents and kids. And

 

Will Bachman  15:39

now you say you grew up in New England or the Northeast, and Alaska has a different. Tell us a little bit more about the different feel of community there. Is it recognize, especially kind of in the business world where you’re in the kind of world of travel and tourism? What’s it like? Do you just is it walking down the street? You recognize people, or there’s more trust in the. Just give us talk to us a little bit about that. That’s a

 

Kristen Fowler  16:04

great question. You definitely run into people at stoplights, even in Anchorage. Anchorage is a city of 300,000 people, but it’s just such a small Alaska’s so so small. It’s crazy. You always have these crazy you know coincidences happening. You know. know. Especially the tourism industry, their people are competing, but they’re also partnering at the same time. So it’s this very collegial group, and it’s also a bunch of extroverts. So there’s nothing hospitality. So we have a convention every year in October, and it’s like it’s bonkers. This is just really it’s like a big party because everyone, you know, they make all their money in three months, so they’re working like 1516-hour, days, and they’re, you know, really crushing. It’s very, what do you call it? Just turbocharged, and so usually there’s a group in there like letting off some steam before they go take a trip to Mexico to like recoup, and so it’s it’s just a really microcosm of the industry and how collegial it is and friendly and warm and it’s just very funny, but so that is probably maybe a description that gives you an example of that community. You were oh you were asking about that openness, so you know New England is very well it’s one of the oldest parts of our country, and you know we had a lot of immigrants coming in Irish and Italian, especially you know Boston area. You’ve got these communities that have had Irish and Italian communities for you know hundreds of years or whatever, and so I’ve had people. I actually this is really funny. I, my family is in Newburyport, and I went to get my hair cut there one day. And the hairstylist was from Alaska. It was like super funny, and we were talking. And she, this this will give you a good answer to what your question was, but she she was very interesting hearing her observations of the era. She was like, it’s very hard to meet people here because they are, you know, you all grew up together. You have your like closed community and your families there, and so like we were talking about how it’s very very different from here, where everyone’s from somewhere else. You have to kind of have that openness and you look out for each other type of thing. So it’s a lot of it’s just based on history and geography and and that sort of thing. But I also really felt, and you know, going to Harvard, you could speak to your own experience of this, but you know, New England and New York, it’s all about where’d you go to school, what do you do, very career focused.

 

Will Bachman  18:38

Yeah,

 

Kristen Fowler  18:38

and here it’s much more experience focused. So, like, we had some friends get married years ago, and you know their best friend was up as their maid of honor or whatever. And I was chatting with her, and she’s like, “Yeah, I’ve been here for three days, and no one has asked me what I do for work. And she was like, “Found that to be shocking. It’s more like, ‘What do you do outside? That kind of thing, so it’s it’s it’s kind of neat. It’s just yeah, it’s just different.

 

Will Bachman  19:05

Well, let’s do that turn. So you know, when you’re not you know helping build websites or or search engine optimize them, tell us about your life in Alaska, non hobbies out things outside of work.

 

Kristen Fowler  19:20

Yeah, outdoors we do it. It’s amazing, especially the winter is really long, so getting outside is really great, especially during the day. We only have about five and a half hours of daylight in Anchorage in December, but we have an incredible world class trail system in the city. In there, it’s the trails are lighted, and so they do not know

 

Will Bachman  19:43

that’s what they’ve lighted trails. Wow. Okay.

 

Kristen Fowler  19:46

Yeah, and most a lot of them are groomed first cross country skiing. So cross country skiing is amazing here, and it’s free. Like we were somewhere when. Colorado or somewhere or something. I’m like, oh my gosh, people have to pay $80 to cross country skiing. That’s bonkers! Like surprise, you know, there it’s like resorts.

 

Will Bachman  20:08

Yeah.

 

Kristen Fowler  20:08

So we have, you know, we have a a nonprofit that runs it, and you can donate. But access to all of that trail system and the skiing and the grooming is free. So that’s probably an absolute highlight of you know the outdoors in the winter here. We have a world class downhill ski resort as well, and then mountain biking is amazing. Tons of trails, miles and miles of trails, right in the city, and then we are adjacent to Chugach State Park, which is right in our backyard. So hiking, backpacking, rafting is like right out your door, pretty much. So we try to do as much as we can. I we did some sea, we did a lot of sea kayaking for a while, but we have a puppy now, so we don’t really do that as much. We do things with our dog. What else do we do? That probably rounds up most of it. Of course, you know there’s Mountaineers like my friends attempted Denali. That is not on my dingo card. I’m good.

 

Will Bachman  21:12

And from your couple decades in the tourism industry, have you tested out and tried yourself some of the various you know, fishing lodges or you know, fishing or you know activities like that.

 

Kristen Fowler  21:27

Sure, I, you know, I, I should have done and should do more with my clients, right? Like being familiar with the product is really important.

 

Will Bachman  21:38

Yeah,

 

Kristen Fowler  21:38

but I always feel like I should be paying and supporting my clients, so I have probably done less than I. But I’ve definitely done the fishing lodge, fly fishing thing. That was cool, zip lining, flight seeing around an alley. I have a client right now called Borealis Base Camp. It’s north of Fairbanks, and they it’s an Aurora viewing resort, domestic resort, but they have those igloos that have the transparent ceiling, so you can lie in bed and watch the aurora. So I’m going to go out there. I was there last August, which was you know fall, but I’m going to go out there in October. So I’m looking forward to that.

 

Will Bachman  22:16

Yeah, what’s the good? What’s the good season for the to see the aurora?

 

Kristen Fowler  22:21

They are is because the summer it’s too much daylight, right? So they are open august 21 through april 10. So that’s when it gets dark enough on the edges that you can have in the middle of the night. But you know March I think is one of the prime months because you’ve got good dark for viewing, but there’s enough daylight during the day to they have dog sledding and snow machining activities during the day, so you can have like the best of both worlds in March.

 

Will Bachman  22:51

That sounds fun. What turning now to some of the second a second segment of the show here. What’s an ideal Saturday for you?

 

Kristen Fowler  23:07

An ideal Saturday. All right, an ideal Saturday would be beautiful. We had a beautiful day yesterday. We’re unlike the rest of the country. We are having one of the rainiest summers ever in history. We do not have a heat dome up here, but um, a perfect Saturday we need to get up and go for a long hike with our dog, and then come back down and hit one of our breweries and have a beer and maybe some lunch, and then you know finish up out on our sunny deck. But that’s-it’s been really nice having a pup because she gets us out. She, you know, and so we’ve been doing a lot of hiking last couple years.

 

Will Bachman  23:51

What is a habit that you have intentionally developed over the last five or 10 years that is really working well for you?

 

Kristen Fowler  24:01

That is a great question, right? Because that would have been COVID, post COVID habit, right? In some ways, versus age. I was I was a college athlete. I’ve run marathons. I’ve been active like after my college years, so I have had a really Type A kind of approach to exercise for many, many years. Like I’d feel guilty for many years for not doing something on a day or whatever. And I think one of the great habits that I have cultivated last five years or so is to not put so much pressure, like on like the doing, the exercising, and also recognizing that like results or improvement or recovery from an injury takes so much longer. It just it just right. If you get your expectations really tight, and then it doesn’t happen, you get discouraged. Like I went through a period of that for a while. And then I wouldn’t do something, so I’ve kind of really stepped back and my kind of outlook on how to approach. I used to call it. I call it moving your body every day. Go do something, and be more mindful about it. So I feel like that has really been a habit that I’ve really enjoyed. So, I marathoned up until a little bit before COVID. I got injured, and so I’ve been walking instead of running. And you know, I was a runner. I’ve had a runner mentality my whole life, and so it was like walking is dumb, whatever. And it’s amazing how much aerobic results you get from walking, and the other thing about walking is it slows you down. Like you are looking around in your environment more when you’re running. You just like don’t you can’t notice things because you’re you’re going just that much faster. So I guess that would be one thing that I would say has been a huge plus on my kind of overall lifestyle and enjoyment of life.

 

Will Bachman  26:04

Let’s turn back to college. What is a course or professor that continues to resonate with you right now?

 

Kristen Fowler  26:15

I have two very specific examples that I share a lot. The first one is that B.F. Skinner came to one of my classes and talked about his baby box, and that was extremely impactful to like a 20-year-old and operant conditioning in that. And he just spoke with so much like certainty and power and belief in his research, and that what really has stuck with me all these

 

Will Bachman  26:45

years. What’s the the baby box you said? What

 

Kristen Fowler  26:47

is this? Yeah. So B. S. Skinner, you know, he his research was around. Okay, whoever’s listening to this and is was a psychology major. If I blow this, I’m sorry, but I I’m pretty sure it’s operant conditioning where he believes that everything is an external, everything is external. That everything can be influenced by external factors. So he created, as part of the research, this baby box. I think he put his daughters in it, and it was like this box where he could have all these external stimuli going into the baby to have a positive upbringing or you know outcome and development as a human, and so you know it sounds kind of kooky. And so hearing him talk about it was really really impactful.

 

Will Bachman  27:37

I was going to ask you earlier what led you to major in Japanese studies.

 

Kristen Fowler  27:42

Really interesting. I in my high school there was a professor I really liked and admired, and I wanted to take a class from him. And I couldn’t get into his regular history class, but he had a Japanese history class as an elective, so I took it. No like interest or knowledge around Asia and Japan, but I did because I really liked this professor, and he it was a great class, and I really enjoyed it. And I started in applied math physics at Harvard, but my math couldn’t keep up with the science at that point, and so I, that was kind of rough little period of adjustment. But once I kind of decided I’m going to move on from that, I kind of shopped some different majors. And I had taken another class freshman year that was about medieval Japan, and really enjoyed it. So, and I went and talked to the professors. I it’s a nice small little department. I felt really, it was felt really personal, and and and I loved it. It was it was just it didn’t feel like you know work because I really enjoyed all the stuff. The other on that note, the other experience I had at school in a class was we took I took a course on the Cultural Revolution, and a gentleman came and did a guest lecture, and he survived the Cultural Revolution. And he gave us a personal, you know, personal story of how he went through it. And it was, you know, it was a political famine, basically. And he spoke about his individual experience, and that was just-you can imagine-it was really mind-blowing. Just to, especially being in rich America with none of that risk. That was just, yeah. That was the other. That’s the other story I always share that I just vividly remember the the whole lecture, even though it’s been what almost 35 years.

 

Will Bachman  29:39

Yeah. Wow. You must have had some courses with Ezra Vogel, right? Who is who taught? You know, he taught the foreign cultures. 26 industrial East Asia. At least that’s yes,

 

Kristen Fowler  29:51

I did. I took that class.

 

Will Bachman  29:53

Yeah.

 

Kristen Fowler  29:54

Um, but I don’t remember him as much. I don’t know why. I mean, obviously. Books, they were great because he he used his books in his class, right? Japan is number

 

Will Bachman  30:05

one, and yes, and then that was like, you know, in the 80s, you know, coming into Harvard, you know, Japan was kind of number one in the 80s, and then he wrote the book and stuff, and I took the class, and then in the 90s, maybe not so much, right? So

 

Kristen Fowler  30:19

moved on to Korea, China, yeah, super interesting.

 

Will Bachman  30:23

Kristen, for listeners who want to follow up and find you online, where would you point them? Your website, your LinkedIn. Where can people find out more about you?

 

Kristen Fowler  30:37

Ah, should I have thought about that? I’ve got my LinkedIn profile, Kristen Fowler Garland. That’s an easy place to find me or my website, my business website. I haven’t got my email on there. That’s the my main email: kristen@tonbodigital.com. T O M B O T O N B O Digital. It’s um it’s the Japanese word for dragonfly.

 

Will Bachman  31:00

Oh, nice. All right, cool, Kristen. Thank you for joining us today.

 

Kristen Fowler  31:06

Thank you. I was like, I don’t know what I would have possibly have to say, but you, I appreciate it. You made me feel like my life has been somewhat interesting getting to talk about it. So, thank you.

 

Will Bachman  31:17

Amazing journey that you’ve had. Thanks for joining.

 

Kristen Fowler  31:19

Awesome.