Some people are obsessed – like real crazy obsessed, “lock them up and run away” kinda obsessed. The crazy cat lady with 723 cats and no sense of smell, the model railway ‘enthusiast’ with more miles of track than Amtrak, the movie fan that can only communicate using film quotes. Sometimes though, people go a little bit further, at which point you just have to give up and join forces!
Meet Kristian, the self-styled ‘firesoul’ of carpooling. Not just of his home town of Bergen, not just of Norway, but far and away the the most carpool obsessed person in the world, and probably beyond.
Now Kristian pre-dates my time here at Carma (I’m a ‘blow-in’, as the Irish members of Team Carma would say), but the story of Kristian Amlie is legendary here at Carma HQ.
During the early days of Carma (before we were even called Carma), we had a small but dedicated team based in rainy old Ireland. While we’d had a few pilot programs in various places, when it came to roll out our first, big, proper project, a few locations came to mind, and none of them involved snow. Eventually, we chose San Francisco – it seemed nice and sunny, good food, and well, there was a transport strike in pipeline. A perfect location to start the carpool revolution. Our second choice was Austin, Texas – again, nice and sunny, again, nice food. Who wouldn’t want to be sent there? We’ll roll out there next. Simple.
Kristian had other ideas. “The people of Norway want carpooling!” he said, “Bring Carma to Bergen!” he cried. We told him we didn’t have the staff to launch in another city, we told him we didn’t like the cold, vi snakker ikke engang norsk; we picked California and Texas because we liked the sun and barbecues. But Kristian didn’t let up. He badgered and cajoled, he huffed and he puffed, and in the end our resistances were blown down, and Kristian Amlie, became the very first Carma Creator, and cold, snowy, Smalahove eating Bergen, in Western Norway became our second rollout.
But that was just the start. Kristian was soon out-Carma-ing Carma. It would be a crime of vast understatement to say Kristian was enthusiastic about carpooling. Here at Carma HQ we’re passionate about, may even love, carpooling, but we didn’t think there was anyone else out there, especially in Norway, who matched us step for step in the passion stakes. Kristian’s love of carpooling burned so hard, so bright, we all knew it had to burn out. But it didn’t, and thanks to Kristian’s tirelessness, Norwegian carpooling was skyrocketing. Kristian pushed everybody to be better, not just in Bergen, but anywhere Carma might be.
In the end we just had to make Kristian Community Manager for all the Carma ambassadors he had recruited.
Carma has now had 16,000+ carpool trips in Bergen, saved 6,000 gallons of gas, and kept 122,000lbs of CO2 from polluting our atmosphere. It can all be traced back to Kristian Amlie, the original Carma Creator.
If you want to be a Carma Creator and kick-start a carpool revolution in you city, neighborhood, town, or workplace, get in touch via our Carma Creators page.