Meet Lauren Howe of Curious Jane in Central

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Howe.

Lauren, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My background is in two very different categories. Fine Arts and Fitness. After graduating with concentrations in Art History and International Relations, I started working for an art gallery in Manhattan NYC. Always teaching Fitness on the side, I transitioned to full-time Fitness in 2012. Believe it or not, I have too much energy for Fitness alone so I started event planning. In 2016, I launched Altitude Beer Ventures.

Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth road? What’s that? I had a few hiccups in my past but do not regret a thing. One of them was opening up a Bootcamp and Personal training space with my business partner in Brooklyn. I thought I needed a partner to do everything but it turns out I perform better on my own while bringing in others for their expertise. That experience also made me realize that I would rather run online businesses or a business where I rent space from others so I am not tied to one location. This is how both Altitude Beer Ventures and Curious Jane operate today.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
Altitude Beer Ventures (ABV) is a craft beer events company with the motto, do fun stuff and drink great beer. I love connecting people. I love bringing people together. I love the balance of doing something active and then relaxing and reflecting with a beer or a glass of wine. As if I didn’t have enough going on, in 2019 an amazing opportunity came up with Curious Jane. What is Curious Jane? It’s a project-based summer camp and after school program for girls ages 5-11. Everything we do revolves around science + engineering + design and we publish and in-print, ad-free magazine full of our projects to try at home. We launched in Denver this past year and are running Summer camps at Graland Country Day School.

With ABV, I customize experiences for people. It’s more than just going to a brewery, they get to learn about the beer itself, interact with the other participants and make a connection to the brewery they may not have otherwise. With Curious Jane, we are empowering young girls and giving them the confidence to fail. Yes, fail. In Ooey Gooey Science class, I give the girls four ingredients and tell them to make slime. They ask me for the recipe and I tell them, write the recipe. They mix and mash and make slime that is too sticky, too slimey, too hard. They failed but they learn to troubleshoot and try again. They leave with slime that is just the right amount of ooey and gooey and they love it.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
Coming from NYC, I like how accessible Denver is. You can drive and find parking (most of the time) and I love that there are bike lanes too so I end up biking most places. I love that there is so much to do in the city but also so much adventure 30-90 minutes west of the city. Sometimes it stresses me out having to decide between a weekend in the mountains and a weekend in Denver.

That’s what stresses me out these days! The thing I probably dislike most about Denver is the haters and complainers. I overhear a lot of people complaining about traffic to the mountains or in the city itself but where I grew up on the east coast a decent hill was a five-hour drive away so to me even if it takes five hours to get to Vail, stop and think, you get to go to Vail. We have access to so much here in Denver.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://curiousjane.fun/graland-denver/
• Email: Lauren@curiousjane.fun
• Instagram: @curiousjane_fun
• Facebook: @curiousjanefun

Image Credit:
@massiveavalanche @timgilliesphotography @jmostudio

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