Interview with Senior Manager Jeffery Bowling

Jeffery Bowling, one of the senior management team members of Touchstone, began working for the gym over a decade ago when the company was just one small gym in the heart of San Francisco’s Mission. Hired as a data entry person, he found himself in a harness belaying kid’s birthday parties within hours of taking the job. Since his first year in 1996 at Mission Cliffs, he has performed nearly every job at Touchstone from route setting to managing Mission Cliffs to his current job as the Director of Marketing and IT.


I’ve been married for five years in August. We met at a Phish Show in Chicago in 2003. We spent three weeks together traveling around seeing Phish shows. When Phish broke up in 2004, I proposed at their last Vermont show so we could spend more time together. For our anniversary, we’re seeing Phish at the Greek theater then traveling to Colorado and Indiana.


Holly and I up in the mountains in Banff, Alberta. We've spent a lot of time traveling, especially in the northeast- we've seen a lot of Phish shows there.


One of the marketing challenges is taking the uniqueness of the gym and sharing that. We have a really strong, great community, and we’re trying to convey that message. One of the things that we found out early on was that grassroots efforts work well- like all of the comps. Members get excited because of the bouldering and rope series and they bring in their friends.

A lot of things grow organically at Touchstone and we take it from there- finding the best way to utilize the resources we have. The Mission Cliffs Facebook page was actually started by some members and we’ve used it to help promote the community.


My wife, Holly, and I are the San Francisco team leaders for HeadCount. HeadCount is an organization that works with bands to register voters at rock concerts.

Stayed tuned for more interviews with the rest of the Touchstone Management Team.