BY KATE DALY
Natalie Gilbert has high hopes the new year will bring growth on every level to the group she organized just a few months ago to foster community among remote workers in the Wood River Valley.
Ketchum Remote Collective has 30-plus members who might drop in on Fridays between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Community Library’s Lecture Hall. There, they spread out at round tables to work and chat or collaborate online through the group’s Linkedin page and Slack channel.
Natalie’s goal is for people to connect with one another and for the group to serve as a both a professional and social resource.
After college she worked in Sun Valley at a restaurant, Lululemon and as a nanny, before returning to her hometown of Seattle to take a steady job. In 2020, when all went remote because of the COVID pandemic, she returned to Sun Valley ready to enjoy the community again.
Her whole team at Paramount works remotely.
“It’s the new normal,” she said. “But it can be pretty isolating.”
Natalie acknowledged that she feels more focused now working at home than she did in an open office where everyone wore noise-cancelling headphones to cut down on the distractions.
But she missed the camaraderie of physically being with people. So, recently, she formed Ketchum Remote Collective. With the help of Catie Schmidt she has pulled together a group that ranges from a 22 year-old recent college grad to 60-somethings, who Natalie said have been in the valley a long time and are looking for a community and opportunity to connect with the younger generation.
The group’s members include remote workers in the energy sector, private equity, marketing, communications, engineering and tech.
Already, some have made worthwhile connections. One person who works for Salesforce and was interested in product integration, for instance, met someone at Ketchum Remote Collective that was using Salesforce and was thus able to learn about that person’s customer experience.
Some 1,900 people in Blaine County worked out of the office at least three times a week in 2021, according to a statistic Sun Valley Economic Development Director Harry Griffith pulled out of the U.S. Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs.
Citing that fact, Natalie sees the potential for a lot of new Ketchum Remote Collective members in the future. She’d also like the organization to form mentorships and subgroups such as women in tech.
Plans are to start up a newsletter in 2024 so members can share their skill sets and/or workspaces, find gig work or friends to volunteer with or fundraise.
The next Ketchum Remote Collective workspace is scheduled from 1 to 4 p.m. Friday, Jan. 5, at Ketchum’s Community Library. Light snacks will be provided.
Go to https://www.ketchumremote.com/ to learn more. A happy hour is to be scheduled soon. Membership is free.