The Staff

Diane began with Touchstone in the summer of 2005 at Sacramento Pipeworks—she spent six years working at the desk there and will always consider it her “home” gym. From Pipeworks she made the move to the South Bay to manage The Studio in the beginning of 2012. After seven years of good times, she made yet another move in 2019 to Dogpatch Boulders.

As much as she loves her gym, work is not everything to her: Diane also enjoys traveling, tennis, lifting, and all things food- and drink-related. If you ever want to swap recipes or fight over which style of BBQ is best, be sure to come to chat her up!

Ryan joined Touchstone in 2007 to feed his climbing addiction. He holds an AA in theology and a BS in geology, but one day hopes to become a stone master. When he isn’t climbing the glorious walls inside a Touchstone gym, you can find him mountaineering, dancing ballet, completing triathlons or training for more climbing.

After throwing in the towel on being the world’s foremost expert on platypus herding…Colton has decided to take on a new venture, climbing! He started climbing at Slo-Op in San Luis Obispo (yes, he knows Joe!) and soon fell in love with the sport. He loves sharing that stoke with anyone who is willing to hang off the side of a mountain with him. When Colton is not at the gym, he enjoys whitewater rafting, bike packing, making art, and sewing.

A So Cal native that moved to Davis in 2018 for school Kinsey joined Pipeworks in 2021 after graduating with a degree in biochemistry. After some exposure through the venture scouts he started climbing in the gym in 2016 and soon got hooked on rock climbing at places like Joshua Tree. When not at the front desk, coaching, or teaching clinics you can find him climbing at one of Tahoe’s excellent crags or some seldom visited spot in California he read about online.

Andrew is an aggressively non-competitive climber, plays disc golf, and tries to do yoga as regularly as possible. You’ll see him at the front desk and walking around the gym, sometimes followed closely by his adorable black lab mix, Lavender.

In the summer of ’17, Courtney drove to California in a small car packed with art supplies, plants, and a cat. Upon arriving, they wandered into Pipeworks and said, “Y’all hiring? I work in climbing gyms.” The rest is now buried in the great book of Touchstone lore. Courtney enjoys naps with their dog, printmaking, film photography, and tending to the gym plants.

Matteo was born with a figure 8 follow-through knot already tied into his umbilical cord and was the first infant under the age of ten seconds to on-sight the UC Davis Medical Center hospital bed (5.10c/vi+). When he isn’t at the gym, he spends his time with his pet snake Clementine and mentioning his band hotplug in conversations in a way that is super casual and organic and not at all an obvious act of shameless self-promotion (instagram: @hotplugtheband email: [email protected]l.com).

Unlike our friend Matteo, alex (she/they) was not born with a trace 8 in her umbilical cord. They were, however, born with gills and flippers. Thus, is a naturally talented swimmer and even earned an athletic scholarship to a D-I school in the deep South. Alex prefers sport climbing to bouldering, is lo-key obsessed with the East Side and Seoul, and will carve the sh*t out of some rubber to make your micro relief print stamp dreams come true. When she’s not climbing, or playing &/or organizing women’s & queer ultimate frisbee, alex is making a huge mess with supplies in her art studio crafting abolitionist stencils and plotting the overthrow of El*n Musk & J*ff Bez*s.