Chris Mercer, a fire captain and body shop manager from Craig, Colorado, shares his journey from a Southern California native to a well-rounded off-roading enthusiast. He discusses his passion for mechanics, competitive four-wheeling, and his goals to become an off-road instructor.
Chris grew up immersed in motorsports and outdoor activities including snowmobiling, motocross, and desert racing. He worked as a computer technician after earning a degree in computer science and business management.
Chris gives 100% in all he does and was recently named Fire Chief of his volunteer fire department, having served for 23 years. In 2010, his first year of rockcrawling competition, Chris won the Formula Toy national championship. The class emphasized driver skill over equipment; he continues to attribute his competitive success to strategic thinking and innovating problem-solving.
The Mercer family maintains 23 vehicles for different terrain needs, with a heavy emphasis on Toyotas. Chris is currently exploring becoming an off-road or recovery instructor to share decades of expertise with newer enthusiasts.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:13.170] – Big Rich Klein
On this episode of Conversations with Big Rich is a guy that has spent all but 3 years of his life living in Colorado, from rural northern Colorado to the Front Range and back again. My guest is now a fire captain, operates a body shop, and wheels while enjoying the outdoors. My guest is Chris Mercer. Chris Mercer, it is so good to have you on the podcast. I’m looking forward to this. We’ve known each other for quite a few years, but I want to know more about you, and I know others do too. So thank you for coming on board.
[00:01:49.780] – Chris Mercer
Well, thanks, Rich, for having me, and Hopefully this will be a good time. So why don’t we get started? Let me know what you, what you want to know. All right.
[00:01:57.200] – Big Rich Klein
Sounds good. So Chris, the first question I have for you is where were you born and raised?
[00:02:03.640] – Chris Mercer
So I try not to tell a lot of people this, but I was actually born in Southern California. Um, I lived there for 3 years and then, uh, my parents moved to Northwest Colorado, Craig, Colorado, where about 90 miles from Utah and 40 miles from Wyoming. It’s a little town. I’ve been here since 1980. So other than a couple of years vacation when I was going to school in Utah, pretty much lived here in Craig pretty much the rest of my life. Wow. Okay.
[00:02:40.400] – Big Rich Klein
So those— what part of Southern California did you spend those first 3 years in?
[00:02:45.970] – Chris Mercer
Uh, I was actually in Orange County area. I was actually born in Bellflower. Okay. Uh, Huntington Beach area. Spent a lot of time down there when I was a kid. My grandparents lived down there, so spent a lot of time around the beach and stuff early on.
[00:03:01.760] – Big Rich Klein
Okay, going down to visit family, right? Okay.
[00:03:04.960] – Chris Mercer
Yep.
[00:03:05.520] – Big Rich Klein
And what, uh, precipitated the, uh, the move to Craig for your family?
[00:03:13.560] – Chris Mercer
So I don’t have— I didn’t have a whole lot of say in the deal. I was just kind of dragged along. Yeah. Um, so I think my— both of my parents grew up in Southern California, and they’d been down there for, for quite a few years. And I think they were just kind of tired of the big city life and wanted to try something different. And my, my dad’s middle brother lived up here. We came up to visit them and They must have just, uh, really enjoyed the area and all of the stuff that was with it because it was a very short period of time after that they moved back or got back down there, packed everything up, sold the house, and moved up here. We’ve been up here ever since.
[00:03:55.460] – Big Rich Klein
Great. Excellent. And so growing up in Craig, it obviously is a lot different and pretty rural still. I don’t think it’ll ever be a huge metropolis. What was— what were your activities as a kid?
[00:04:14.250] – Chris Mercer
So, um, for those listening, just to put it in perspective, where we’re at in Colorado, we’re in the second biggest county in the state of Colorado. It’s actually bigger than the state of Connecticut. There are 10,000 people in the entire county. So, a lot of— there’s a lot of remoteness out here. A lot of wildlife out here. We have a very diverse terrains out here. We’ve got mountains within 15, 20 minutes of town. I have high desert within 20 miles in the other direction. A lot of farming and ranching out here. So, growing up as a kid, I did a lot of snowmobiling. I used to ride motorcycles and ATVs a lot. Did a lot of motocross racing as a kid, some desert racing. When I started— well, let me back up. I guess some of our off-roading and stuff that we did was just mostly two tracks, dirt roads, snow bashing. We get a lot of snow up here, so spent a lot of time doing that. It wasn’t really until I got into high school, into college and stuff, that I kind of got into the off-road scene. But a lot of the stuff that I— again, what I was doing when I was a kid was mostly just motocross, desert racing. READ MORE
