To kick off 2021, we are happy to introduce you to Jens Kulstad. Jens has been a member of our squad since the early days of Nuvera, joining the company as the second employee.

I am a manager at Nuvera with a diverse professional background including life science consulting, work in the heavy-duty automotive industry, and coaching of national & international top sailors. In addition to consulting work, I am leading the efforts around the PURE Report which is growing into a very nice product that I am very proud of. I have two master’s degrees, one in Mechanical Engineering and one in Business Administration which helped me tremendously throughout my career.

What’s the top destination on your must-visit list? I had three top destinations I really wanted to do before I started my family, one of which I accomplished – diving with Orcas. Also on my list is to cage-dive with great whites but first I would like to travel to Churchill, Manitoba to see the polar bears. The polar bears gather together in large numbers (hundreds of them!!) until they become loners over the long winter months. It would be such an honor and privilege to see this magnificent animal live in its true elements, so it is a dream that never will go away and I am hopefully not too far away from being able to fulfill it. My only promise is that there will be tons of safeguards in place between me and them, because as fascinating as this animal is, it is equally scary and frightening…

What behavior or personality trait do you most attribute your success to, and why? I would definitely say curiosity and willingness to solve problems where the solutions are not always apparent. At Nuvera, we are typically hired when clients are facing a problem they can’t solve internally and external support is needed. Many of the problems we face require genuine curiosity and ability to think outside the box to recommend unique solutions for our clients. I have always loved solving problems which is something engineering school and work was all about and Nuvera allowed me to apply these skills on different set of problems and areas, but where the same attitude is being rewarded.

If you could snap your fingers and become an expert in something, what would it be? I would probably become a magician. There is something about magic that always fascinated me, I can’t really explain why. I know a few card tricks, but never went into the magician thing even though it fascinates me. I really should be reading good night stories to my youngest son, but lately I have been cheating and watching a magic show every time I put him to bed. He has been equally fascinated by the mind games the magicians put up. So maybe there is such a thing as a magic gene, who knows?

What’s a trip that changed you, and why? Travel has always been a passion of mine and I have twice travelled around the world in my younger days. I would say the first big trip I did at the age of 19 that I partly did with a friend and partly did alone where we spent the majority of our 6 months in Australia is the trip with biggest influence on me. In addition to seeing the world and meeting people from all over the world, I learned to tackle life on the go. I worked hard a few months prior to afford the trip, but was still on a very tight budget and took ad hoc work-on-the-go as I travelled. This included everything from mango fruit picking to hostel maintenance to construction and sheep herding, which gave a very interesting perspective on life. In a similar fashion to get around to the different destinations, I got bus tickets between some locations, but also hitchhiked with cars or sailing boats along the coastline. This made me experience a very entrepreneurial lifestyle that left a permanent positive imprint on me as a person.

What’s one hobby you’d love to get into? Just before I moved from Sweden to the US almost 15 years ago, I planned on picking up kite surfing which is when the whole kite surfing movement was in its infancy. Since I moved to the US, I have never lived really close to the coast and also had kids that prevented me from doing a time-consuming hobby like this. However, my kids are getting older and I am getting more time back to do “Jens things”, so I am soon ready to find a nice kite + board and start learning. My hometown in Sweden is absolutely perfect for this, with flat water for the first half mile closest to the shore. But even if I can’t find similar conditions in NJ there may be other fun challenges where there are more wave-surfing characteristic rip curl waves that has its own charm to play around in. I can’t wait 🙂