SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (BRAIN) — In many ways, Elayna Caldwell's long career in the industry has come full circle. It started in 1996 with a job at RockShox, back when it was still located in Santa Cruz. When RockShox moved to Colorado in 2000, Caldwell stayed in California and worked for skateboard and snowboard distributor NHS, which at that time shared a building with Santa Cruz Bicycles.
Caldwell went on to work as Fox Racing Shox's marketing director for eight years until she left Santa Cruz to work for Interbike and, most recently, SRAM, where she spent the past five years as its mountain bike brand director, living in Chicago, Schweinfurt, Germany, and Colorado Springs.
Now, after seven years away from the iconic California surf and mountain bike mecca, Caldwell has returned to Santa Cruz. After what the company called an "exhaustive and perhaps quixotic search," Juliana Bicycles recently hired Caldwell as its new general manager.
Caldwell's long history with Juliana, Santa Cruz's women's brand, dates back to founder Juliana Furtado's racing days.
"I met Juli in the 1990s when she was still racing. When she retired, she moved to Santa Cruz and we hung out," Caldwell said. "We would go riding together. But Juliana (the brand) has been around since I worked in a cannery with NHS, when they had one model. So I've been around the brand for a long time."
Santa Cruz kept the Juliana model in its line from 1999 until 2013, when it launched Juliana Bicycles as a separate brand with four models. That same year, Caldwell helped form the Juliana-SRAM women's enduro racing team shortly after she began working for SRAM.
"I've been working with them from the supplier-sponsorship side since then," Caldwell said. "So this feels good. I'm happy. I'll have the opportunity to manage all aspects of the business."
In addition to Caldwell, Juliana has two employees, including Katie Zaffke, brand manager, and former pro mountain bike racer Kelli Emmett, who manages events and sponsorships.
Caldwell plans to divide her time between Santa Cruz and Buena Vista, Colorado, where her husband, Joe Parkin, recently purchased Boneshaker Cycles. Parkin, a former pro road and mountain bike racer who previously worked as editor of Bike magazine, teamed up with Simon Stewart, who most recently worked in SRAM's tech marketing department, to buy the shop.
Look for more about Boneshaker Cycles in the Dec. 1 issue of Bicycle Retailer.
