1) Name
Chris Childers
2) How did you get to gap intelligence?
I was born and raised in San Diego and even ended up going to school in North County San Diego at Cal State San Marcos. During my time there I was interested in a couple different things such as movies, finance, and video games. Ultimately I ended up majoring in Computer Science and after graduating applied for a decent array of jobs. Almost all the jobs I applied for did have 1 general similarity, data analysis, so when I was asked to join the team at gap I was excited to start.
3) What values lead you and why?
That’s a tough one but I’d say in general just being clear and logical. Try to always consider the opinions of the people around you and always try to keep a level head. Consider everything equally to find the best course of action forward. Everyone is a unique person with a unique set of experiences and as such is able to provide a unique opinion. Those unique opinions are often very valuable and insightful if given the light of day.
4) What skills are you bringing to gap intelligence and what skills are you excited to learn?
When I’m working on a task that starts to feel a bit draggy or slow I’ll often try to think about alternative ways to improve the process. Almost everything in life can be improved in some sort of way and often it doesn’t take much to improve. That in combination with a decent eye for detail I feel can be very good for efficiently and thoroughly accomplishing any sort of task.
Improving my excel skills is something I’m excited for. Not just that but also learning to operate well in an office environment. This is my first office job and feels a bit different than anything I’ve done before and so I hope to get better at working in the space.
5) If you could have any superpower, what would it be, why, and what would you do with it?
Teleportation would be a fun one. I think the coolest part of having it would be to figure out how to use it. I mean with teleportation you don’t really need money. If you’re hungry just teleport into a grocery store, grab something, and teleport out. If you need a place to sleep, teleport into some rich guy's vacation home and sleep. But even though you don’t need money, finding out a way to get money with the ability of teleportation would be a fun puzzle.
There are also some other cool things you could do. You could get an astronaut suit and teleport through space exploring the universe or quickly become the best magician in the world by instantly teleporting from the left side of the stage to the right and watch as people try to figure out how it was done. There would be all sorts of fun things to mess around with or interesting challenges to solve and overcome. Something like that would keep me occupied for a while.
6) What’s the quirkiest thing about you that you’re willing to admit?
I’m a pretty boring guy so I don’t have many weird quirks but I’d say that I’m a bit of a movie snob. I really like some of the smaller, weirder, and more artsy films over many of the big blockbusters. Smaller films usually have smaller budgets and the director is given a lot more creative freedom and therefore are able to more accurately portray and express a unique idea. When there is a big movie with a $300 million budget, the priority is to make back that money. When that happens, there are a lot of people making sure nothing controversial, risky, or out of the box is happening in the film so that they can almost guarantee they make back their money. Often times, the storyline will be a bit cookie cutter as a result because that’s the safe choice. I still watch and enjoy most of those big budget movies because they still are fun and enjoyable movies but they definitely don’t make me feel the same emotion that a smaller film can.
7) What’s your favorite thing to do in San Diego and why?
Definitely mountain biking. I played a semester of college club soccer my sophomore year and it was pretty awesome. Unfortunately a week before the season ended I tore my ACL. While recovering and building back the muscle on my injured leg I would use the bike machine in the gym. One day I decided to grab my old mountain bike and head to some trails near my campus for a change of scenery. As I recovered I really started to get into biking and so with some money from my college job valeting cars, decided to buy a good mountain bike. It’s been about 2 years since I made that purchase and with year round sunny San Diego weather, it’s been a blast ever since.
8) What was the last gift you gave someone?
I don’t give out too many gifts but for a very long time my dad’s dream car has been a Porsche 911. So a couple years ago I bought him a Porsche 911… poster. It was a pretty cool poster and in fact, it might have even come with the newspaper for free. I got it framed and when I gave it to him, he quickly tore down some family photos on the wall near his bed and put up the newly framed poster. Porsche 911 comes first, family comes second. The man has his priorities set straight.
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