Meet Jason Marsteiner | Founder/CEO of The Survival University

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jason Marsteiner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jason, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
My thought process behind starting my own business was quite simple. I grew up in a small mountain town where what people are calling “prepping” and “survival” , adventuring, “rewilding” and being outdoors was just a way of life. In 2010 I recognized a niche that needed to be filled and I had the skills required to fill that niche. I started out small by selling gear on the internet and that turned into consulting on how to use said gear. That quickly turned into taking people out into the woods to teach them the skills to use the gear and the practical skills needed to survive emergency situations should something happen while they were out on an adventure.

What should our readers know about your business?
My business started off in 2010 as Colorado Mountain Man Survival. After the first five years of selling gear and building custom 72 Hour Kits, which FEMA recommends everyone has, it evolved into me training people in the skills of wilderness and urban survival. From 2010 to 2018 I ran the business solo, with the last 3 years of me teaching people these skills in the outdoors. In 2018 the business grew bigger than me as my clients wanted to learn more than what I could provide at the level that they deserved. I did not want to be like many people in my industry, where I would go learn a skill, over a short period of time and then attempt to teach it. Instead, I invited experts in specific fields to come to my location to teach what they knew, at my side. I scoured the country to find some of the best instructors to come here to Colorado, to teach. At this point, I founded The Survival University so that all of these other instructors and existing businesses, that were not Colorado Mountain Man Survival, had something to fall under as a single recognizable entity. I bring in a nationally registered paramedic from South Carolina to teach my medical program, a recognized tactical tracker from Tennessee to teach Search and Rescue tracking, a certified butcher and chef that teaches austere cooking to our military’s special forces, an herbalist from Oregon to teach plant medicine, a plant identification specialist that has been teaching about plants longer than I have been alive and a whole slew of other national and local instructors to teach about subjects that everybody wants to learn. I’m the author of “Wilderness Survival Guide – Practical Skills for the Outdoor Adventurer”. Published in 2021.

Probably the biggest thing I have learned along the way is that to truly be successful, I cannot do this alone. Networking, making friends and treating your peers and employees with respect is the only real and rewarding way to get ahead. By networking I turned a small time business of selling products online into a successful educational facility. And in 2020 The Survival University become a registered 501c3 shortly after I met my business partner that saw the value in what The Survival University had to offer. The company couldn’t have made it to the next level without my Executive Director, Bonny Isaacs. And I cannot forget my right hand man and Director of Operations, Matthew McFarland. With all of our combined efforts, and vision, TSU has grown leaps and bounds and there are big things in the future.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
What are my favorite spots in the city? Considering I am an avid outdoorsman and spend most of my time in the woods, I cannot accurately answer this question. If I had a week with my best friend, the last thing I would do would be to take them to places around the city. I would take them out into the backcountry and have them experience something that they probably have never done before. Drinking at the finest brewery has nothing on drinking out of a fresh mountain spring. The best steak I have every eaten was cooked on hot rock over a campfire. They best entertainment was not sitting in a chair watching another person perform but rather sitting under the night sky watching the stars twinkle or the flames of a campfire swirl and dance before your eyes. Nothing is more invigorating or empowering than spending several nights out in the backcountry, sleeping under the stars, with the wilds of Mother Nature moving around you. No concert or show can compete with the songs that nature can sing if you just quiet your mouth and your mind and just listen.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My success cannot be dedicated to one single person. I didn’t learn anything I know or teach from a single book or a celebrity or a big name in the industry that anybody would know about. In fact, I didn’t even know that what I do now was a thing until a coworker of mine brought in a bag of food that was about to expire from his emergency supplies. What I had been doing my entire life and thought was just common sense, was something that the majority of the people in the U.S. had little knowledge about. But where did I get my knowledge? Where did I get my drive? Most of what I learned came from my mother and father. From a young age they taught me how to hunt and fish and adventure. They gave me the freedom to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. They taught me all about cooking, first aid, creativity, and everything a person should know to get by in the world without relying on others or the system to take care of me. I took every opportunity I could in my life to learn from friends, family, school teachers, coworkers and anybody that I interacted with on a personal level. Everybody in my life was a mentor or inspiration. Even those that had a negative impact on my life inspired me to be better and do better.

For a time I fell into the grind that we call corporate America but I got sick of being used so that other people could become rich and follow their own dreams. When an opportunity presented itself, I recognized my skillset that I had learned over a lifetime, took a chance and grabbed the bull by the horns.

Website: www.thesurvivaluniversity.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jason_thesurvivaluniversity/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-marsteiner-013b7b52/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cmmsurvival

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMMSurvival/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/ColoradoMountainManSurvival

Image Credits
Robin Schneider