Trango, the Colorado-based premier climbing brand, is pleased to announce a new partnership with U.S. climber and US Olympic team member, Jesse Grupper. Grupper, who has qualified for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympic Games, is also a member of the US Climbing Team. He secured his Olympic ticket by winning the 2023 Pan American Championships. In 2022, he won two Lead World Cups in (Briançon, France and Edinburgh, Scotland). He also enjoys climbing outdoors, with flashes of Pure Imagination (14c; Red River Gorge, KY), and Living Astro (14c; Rumney, NH), and a send of Full Metal Brisket (15a; New River Gorge, WV). Grupper started climbing at age 8 and won his first national title at age 11.
But qualifying for the Paris Olympic Games is not the pinnacle of Grupper’s career. The 27-year-old earned a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Tufts University in 2019, and in 2020, accepted a research fellowship in the Biodesign Lab at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS). His focus has been working on projects designed to restore movement to individuals who have suffered strokes; his first project was a soft robotic glove to help stroke victims with their rehabilitation. In preparation for the Olympics, Grupper is working remotely and balancing his mechanical engineering career.
Says Grupper, “Trango has been a leading brand in technical climbing gear for such a long time and has had some of the best climbers in the world utilize their products. With the wide breadth of gear that Trango has to offer, I’m super excited to be joining a team of experienced and dedicated climbers!” Some of Grupper’s favorite gear from Trango include the Horizon Harness, the Beta Stick Evo, and the Regulock HMS Locking Carabiner.
We posed Jesse with a few questions to help you get to know him better:
What do you like about climbing?
I see climbing as an art form and a way to showcase an expression of myself that can’t come out in any other way. Despite being in the sport for so long, climbing continues to provide unique challenges for me to push my physical and mental capabilities
Do you climb outdoors as well as indoors? Trad and sport?
I do! I love having the balance between the two and the challenges that they each bring respectively. (I have done some trad climbing, but I don’t have much experience here and mostly focus on boulder and sport.)
How does your educational background impact your climbing (e.g. you’re trained as an engineer, are there any connections with problem solving?).
Definitely! Engineering and climbing are quite similar you’re presented with a start and a finish and it’s up to you to figure out the best path from one to the other using the tools and skills that you’ve developed. Engineering also provides me with a way to find balance from consistent high-end training and competing. It lets me think about alternative problems and helps me feel more well-rounded in general.
How would you describe yourself–as an engineer who climbs, or a climber who happens to be a dedicated engineer working with adaptive technology?
Right now, I’m a professional climber who also works as an engineer in assistive technology, but this has flip flopped, and I think the balance is really valuable.
How did you get involved with climbing?
My sister and parents found our local climbing gym, NJRG in a magazine. I was dragged to the gym with them for my sister’s lessons. I had way too much energy as a kid and couldn’t just sit on the couch. I started taking lessons myself and haven’t looked back. My dad started climbing soon after us, and we all have continued climbing to this day.
What advice do you have for young climbers who are interested in competition?
Have fun! Climbing can be a life-long pursuit if you give it the chance!
What are your strengths as a climber? Weaknesses?
I think my strengths are my tenacity, and willingness to keep fighting when it’s hard (on and off the wall). My weaknesses might be that same tenacity- I think this tenacity can make it challenging for me to walk away from boulders/routes that I haven’t completed, and just accept that I’ve learned something for the day when I actually would have been more productive moving on to something else.
Any favorite music you listen to before competitions?
I love musicals, Hamilton, Moana, and Encanto are some of my go-tos. Some Classical music has also been my go-to while I’m in the chair before competing.
Chris Klinke, Trango president, welcomes Grupper to the Trango athlete team. “We have long been impressed with not only Jesse’s climbing, but his sheer enthusiasm for the sport,” says Klinke. “Not only are we proud to have Jesse representing Trango at the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games and future World Cups, but we know that he inspires other athletes on a daily basis. We are very supportive of the excellent work he does in his professional life as a mechanical engineer and even more impressed with his dedication to climbing.”
About Trango
Founded in Boulder, Colorado in 1991, Trango is an athlete driven brand, dedicated to challenging the status quo of climbing and advancing indoor gym technology. Our company is passionate about creating solution-oriented products that help climbers pursue the sport we love. We make innovative equipment that climbers trust. You can count on Trango gear to deliver something extra, something special, that will contribute to your climb, indoors or out.
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CBJ press releases are written by the sponsor and do not represent the views of the Climbing Business Journal editorial team.
