Company Profile

Cairn Engineering was founded by Chris Esser and Matt Burns. The two men had met in 2016 during a climbing session at their local gym. Cairn began by doing NASA-funded research on a novel propulsion system to improve sustainability in space by de-orbiting satellites at the end of their missions. One of the important discoveries they made in that research was that rocket science is less fun (and sometimes more dangerous) than than climbing, so - as their online write-up notes - they pivoted to focus their engineering skills on climbing and other outdoor adventures.