First to Find with Bryan Roth
Join us and be the first to find mysteries hidden in plain sight. Bryan Roth, co-founder and President of Groundspeak, the company behind Geocaching.com, guides us through a story of adventure, discovery and connection. Along the way we hear from longtime geocacher Marcellus Cadd whose insights remind us why the search still matters.
Our story begins at midnight on May 1, 2000 when the U.S. government ended Selective Availability and GPS accuracy leapt from city blocks to footsteps. Within hours computer engineer Dave Ulmer hid a black plastic bucket in the Oregon woods and posted its coordinates online. Inside were a few simple treasures: a cassette, a book, a can of beans and a logbook waiting for whoever arrived first. That playful experiment became the world’s first geocache.
From those rainy woods the story moves north to Seattle where a trio of adventurers and technologists transformed Ulmer’s gesture into a lasting platform for exploration. Bryan describes late nights in basements and borrowed offices that eventually led to the company’s current home along the Burke-Gilman Trail in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, a longtime crossroads of inventors, artists and dreamers.
Bryan’s stories carry us from Civil War battlefields to Frankfurt forests and down into the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench. No matter how distant or extreme, each place is tied to the same spark of discovery.
We also meet Marcellus Cadd, known as Atreides, joining us from Austin, Texas. A prolific geocacher with a writer’s eye, his blog Geocaching While Black captures the humor, grace and grit of the hunt. Cadd shares what first drew him to the game, the joy he has found through thousands of caches and moments of unease that reveal the complexities of searching in America.
His stories take us from Tunnel of Light beneath the Cascade Mountains to Necropolis of Britannia Manor III in Texas and to a quiet but unsettling moment at a Confederate memorial in Paris, Texas. Through it all he reminds us that while Geocaching.com provides the framework, players write the real story.
First to Find invites listeners into the thrill of the hunt, from the first hidden bucket to intricate puzzle caches, forgotten tunnels and even a cache aboard the International Space Station. Through every clue, coordinate and encounter we are reminded that the world remains full of hidden things and that finding one another may be the greatest discovery of all.
We record on the traditional lands of the Coast Salish peoples at the Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle’s University District.
The views expressed in this podcast series are those of the guests and reflect their personal lived experiences. Power of Place presents oral histories with real people, and while some opinions may be controversial, they are shared as authentic expressions that honor the complexity of place. Conversations are edited for length and clarity, but otherwise remain unedited to preserve context and substance. Listener discretion is advised.
For more insight into Geocaching, explore:
“People are looking for a sense of belonging. And they are looking for community. Geocaching and the geocaching community provide that opportunity in a welcoming way. ”
