Erik Chelstad is a child of both coasts. In his life, he spent a lot of time skiing, and carried that activity into his adult life. Funny enough though, he is actually a better boarder than skier. He volunteers with the local avalanche centers, and climbs mountains where he lives – which is the Pacific Northwest, near Mt. Ranier. In his words, climbing gives him ample time to think.

He’s married, and just moved into a house outside of the city. He has found a new hobby in being a home owner, which he says as a new platform to play with – cameras, sensors, sprinkler systems – etch. They have a dog, and if they are lucky enough to have kids one day, Erik hopes it will be easier than having a dog… and, that the kids won’t bite him.

In a prior venture, Erik was the owner of bakeries. In developing certain channels for distribution, he ran into a problem where he didn’t have visibility to his product at places he didn’t control. He figured out the answer was cell phones, and a centralized location for entities to consume this information.

This is the creation story of Observa.

Sponsors.

• Acton Children’s Business Fair
• Work Patterns

Links

• Website: https://www.observanow.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chelstad/