Matt Mattila's Cool Tech Job

What is your current title?
MOVE (MObility and Vehicle Efficiency) Consultant and Project Manager for Project Get Ready at the Rocky Mountain Institute (a think and do tank) in the outdoor Mecca Boulder, Colo.

If you had to write an ad to fill your job, what would it say?
Seek diplomatic juggler willing to take pay cut to help implement the incredible solutions to cleaning up our transportation challenges.

What's the coolest thing about your job?
I get to help people from GM and Nissan to Better Place and Tesla talk to cities like Portland and Raleigh in order to coordinate and prepare to make plug in vehicles a success.

What are at least five duties you have as part of your job?
1. Keeping informed on the latest developments in transportation innovation.
2. Presenting at industry wide conferences.
3. Developing models to prove the business case for charging infrastructure.
4. Coming up with creative solutions to bringing down battery costs via use in a recycled "2nd Life".
5. Integrating with the brightest minds in other industries through our Energy Resource and Built Environment teams.

What's the coolest thing you've done so far in your current job?
We often run charrettes (intensive innovation workshop where we convene stakeholders to identify a vision, barriers to a vision, and solutions to those barriers) and I get to pitch and challenge ideas with industry behemoths like WalMart, geniuses like our own Amory Lovins (one of Time's most influential people this year), military players like TARDEC, and start-ups like Bright Automotive where we recently developed ideas to help heavy trucks double their efficiency and are actually working on projects to implement these solutions.

Does your career ever get dull or routine? How do you rekindle your love for it?
Ha, I wish I could have a dull day. We are a mission oriented nonprofit organization. People are ampped to get things done here. We consider ourselves a "think and do tank" -- providing solutions on how businesses, communities, individuals and governments can improve the bottom line, increase employment, protect and enhance natural and human capital, increase profit and competitive advantage, and enjoy many other benefits.

If that doesn't get your pulse going, then there's always someone in the office who is willing to take you out mountain biking, kayaking, or climbing during lunch and scare the living daylights out of you.

Did you ever expect to have the career you have?

Does anybody? I guess I'm not Indiana Jones- so things didn't go exactly to plan. But, I can say that around college I started working on this path. I hated driving and knew that my Jeep Grand Cherokee was terribly inefficent, but there really aren't many good options for getting myself, my brother, and the surfboards to the beach. In college I started working with groups that helped people figure out alternative ways of getting around.

What was your career path?
Graduated with a degree in Business then moved to Los Angeles to work with the Boston Consulting Group.

A few of my strategy projects were with automakers, nonprofits, and other companies (sorry we signed nondisclosure agreements) doing really innovative work. I spend several years there learning how CEOs, CFOs, and the people that lead the most profitable companies in the world think.

I also got to work in Moscow (don't take the unlicensed cabs even if your coworker is built like the incredible hulk- that's what expense budgets are for), Stockholm, Tokyo, and other incredible cities. More importantly I was exposed to a variety of industries, and Michael Brylawski (now Chief of Strategy at a Phev startup) who encouraged me to check out the Rocky Mountain Institute and stop working for the man.

I didn't get in on my first efforts, but landed a great job with a newly forming Strategy Group at Oakley (hint: Oakley is awesome- they may have a secret room with a microbrewery, I believe they are getting a tank, my boss surfed better than me and knows Kung-fu, and I was by far the dorkiest employee in a sea of hipsters, former pro cyclists, and Orange County locals).

At Oakley I got to see how a company functioned from the inside, learned the importance of branding, and started to agree with the founders wisdom that sometimes the customer has no idea what they want. Post Oakley I took a hiatus, and my girlfriend and I drove from California all the way down to Panama, surfing, camping, and having adventures. Then we sold that inefficient SUV (not sure on the legality of that) and sailed on to Columbia. There's a long story here, but we flew from Patagonia back to Colorado where I finally got a job at RMI.

Do you have advice for how people can find their own cool job and live out their passions?
Make the most of where you are at, but keep your eyes and ears open.

I didn't get my dream job right out of college, but I tried to work at places that would get me there. I had to enlist the support of lots of friends and approached Rocky Mountain Institute several times before I landed a job (and it certainly wasn't for more money than I was making in the for profit world).

If you have a job right now, you should consider yourself pretty lucky. As long as I either live in a cool place or work at something I really enjoy -- I consider it a win. Sometimes you have to give up the ocean to live in the mountains.

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