Sports photographer, off-road enthusiast, marketing genius – Steven Bisig wears a ton of different hats. Listen in to two old friends talk about all the things they love in off-road. It’s a fun listen. Be sure to tune in on your favorite podcast app.
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6:41 – I was home by myself and I had a BB gun
12:04– it took you this long to get a ticket??
19:18 – that’s where I met a lot of the industry people I still consider friends.
25:41 – my main role was anything photography related
28:01 – a pretty crazy event we went down for Supercrawl one year in Vegas…
39:17 – It’s an enthusiast-run company where everybody in the company are car people
44:18 – I special ordered one with a diesel, firecracker red and very minimal options
54:09 – my break into sports photography was through a contact I met at ARB
We want to thank our sponsors Maxxis Tires and 4Low Magazine.
TRANSCRIPT
[00:01:47.050] – Big Rich Klein
On today’s episode of Conversations with Big Rich, we have Steven Bisig. Well, I know Steven from back in the early ARB days. Not sure exactly when he started. I knew a couple of guys, I think, prior to him. But Steven has always been a great guy. He’s jumped around with a couple of companies, but it looks like he’s solid now. We’re happy to hear that, steven, thank you for coming on board and sharing your life. And it’s good to talk to you.
[00:02:21.110] – Steven Bisig
Yeah, thanks for having me on the podcast. We’ve been trying to set this up for a while. Yeah, we finally worked out.
[00:02:28.360] – Big Rich Klein
It’s good. I’m glad we were able to do this. So let’s jump right in and find out where you were born and raised.
[00:02:36.730] – Steven Bisig
Yeah. So I’m one of the few people in Western Washington that actually was born here in the Seattle/Tacoma area. I was born and raised in Calif, Washington, and the furthest I moved was North Seattle for about nine years. And now I’m back down closer to where I was born, I think seven or 8 miles from the actual hospital. I’m actually currently living in Federal Way.
[00:03:03.560] – Big Rich Klein
Okay. And what was the area like back then? My dad was raised in Seattle. Wasn’t born there, was he? Yes, I think he was born and raised in Seattle as well, up on Lake Washington. I don’t want to screw up what area it was at, but they moved to California when he was a kid. But how rural was it back then?
[00:03:33.010] – Steven Bisig
So where I actually grew up was Puyullup, was kind of known as a hop community, hop farms. And basically when the wagon trains came out west, a lot of them either went down towards Oregon or they went over our mountain passes here and kind of settled in the Puyullup valley or the Puget sound area. So technically, I didn’t grow up in the Seattle area. I can tell you where your dad was born, though, that you probably won’t want to look up the property value if you lived up there. Everything just like California, everything is just skyrocketed.
[00:04:14.670] – Big Rich Klein
Their house there that they lived in had a view of Lake Washington there up on some hill. I want to say it was like the university district or something like that, I don’t know. But it was we’ve driven by it a number of times, and I don’t think they owned it, though. They were renting back then.
[00:04:33.660] – Steven Bisig
Got you. So I grew up in kind of a chalky. My dad, my grandfather, my mom all went to the same high school in Puyullup high school, but my dad and then I ended up growing up there as well. It’s actually a small town right next to Puyullup, which is called edgewood, and it actually didn’t even become a true town in their city. Gosh, it was right around the wow.
[00:05:01.050] – Big Rich Klein
So it’s unincorporated.
[00:05:02.710] – Steven Bisig
Yeah, it was unincorporated. Sorry for my voice here. Mountains this weekend, and all the fire unfortunately, all the fire smoke is starting to get to me.
[00:05:10.630] – Big Rich Klein
That’s all right.
[00:05:11.740] – Steven Bisig
So anyway, my little town there, edgewood, which is funny because same junior high, same thing, my grandfather, myself, and my dad all went to the same junior high. My dad and I actually shared a couple of teachers.
[00:05:26.870] – Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:05:27.900] – Steven Bisig
But yeah, that’s a whole other story. But that town, Edgewood at that time was I mean, we didn’t have a large piece of property, but across the street was all farmland. It was all like a horse pasture or cow pasture. So mostly Edgewood was still kind of that old school little farming community up on the hillside. So essentially, like, outskirts of the larger Tacoma and so on. Currently, now it’s just like many places. A lot of that land is being developed and apartment buildings are going up. My father has been a full time firefighter in that town his entire career, so he’s on his second fire department remodel.
[00:06:14.770] – Big Rich Klein
Wow.
[00:06:15.190] – Steven Bisig
So it just kind of shows you and that’s just they need the support for all the apartments and retirement homes and all that are going up. So it’s changed big time. Every time I drive through that town, it’s like, holy smoke, there’s more.
[00:06:32.390] – Big Rich Klein
So when you were growing up, what was your entertainment that young age?
[00:06:41.270] – Steven Bisig
Well, my dad was a full time firefighter at that time. He was working for ten, so I was home by myself during the summertime, and I had a BB gun. I shot cans in the backyard. I had my BMX bike that rode all around town with friends, and that was bad. That was my entertainment. I was always outside playing. READ MORE
