If you happen to check out the website for Kajaer GeoConsulting, there is an introductory section ABOUT US that provides a little insight on the background of the company and its owners Angie and Solli. We ended the intro with a cliffhanger (okay not really a cliffhanger) ending asking the reader and hopefully potential clients asking for the full story. I can say that nobody has read that introduction and asked us for the full story. This is true primarily because not very many people have read the website introduction. (We really need to fix our website.) I can say that almost every potential client, overseeing agency who have interviewed us, and friends and family who have seen our logo have asked “What does Kajaer stand for?”. It has been effective as a good ice breaker or a very efficient way of eating up some time in somewhat stressful conversations.
As Angie and I decided over 2 years ago to start a GIS consulting business, one of the most exciting but challenging tasks was to come up with a name for our business. The whole premise of even considering starting a company was stemmed out of our frustrations of prioritizing our work and our families. Honestly, the priority is our families…no question, but that didn’t mean that we couldn’t work and dedicate ourselves to a career. We both had STEM degrees and supportive families, but still felt like we couldn’t commit to something as “unsecured” as starting a business. Okay…I could probably go on for a while on that topic, but I will reel it back to the name.
We wanted a name that reflected our priorities. GIS Guru seemed catchy, or Mapping Mommas seemed fun and maybe relevant. Then we got self-conscious on whether it seemed too “mom-ish”. We were proud to be moms, but I don’t know if we really viewed ourselves as Mapping Mommas. Then we went for inanimate cartographic items like North Star, or Compass Precision…which maybe were all taken. So we went back to our focus…our kids. We wanted them to see that we could be moms AND technical entrepreneurs. We wanted to think of them every time we went to work and maybe had to work a little longer.
Angie has a daughter named Kara, and I have a son Jared, and a daughter Erica. We took the 1st two letters from their names and came up with Kajaer. Then we did a search to make sure it didn’t mean something sketchy like “Bad maps” in German. Well it doesn’t. I think it might even mean Dear or Beloved somewhere. One person assumed we bought the company from some foreign tech investor. Okay…that was a potentially interesting but quick conversation.
So there you go. Kajaer….our name says it all! We are moms and it is all about being a mom. Well…sort of. We also make great maps and can help find some efficient solutions to GIS challenges.
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