Dave Ulmer
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Dave Ulmer came up with the concept of the GPS Stash Hunt (now called geocaching) and introduced it to the world on May 2, 2000, the day after President Clinton turned off Selective Availability (SA), the intentional degradation of the Global Positioning System (GPS) signals available to the public.
On a USENET newsgroup, Ulmer wrote, “Now that SA is off we can start a worldwide Stash Game!! With Non-SA accuracy…should be easy to find someone's stash from waypoint information.
"Waypoints of secret stashes could be shared on the Internet, people could navigate to the stashes and get some stuff. The only rule would for stashes is: Get some Stuff, Leave some Stuff!!”
The following afternoon, he continued, “ Make your own stash in a unique location, put in some stuff and a log book. Post the location on the Internet. Soon we will have thousands of stashes all over the world to go searching for.”
That same day, Ulmer hid the first stash, reporting, “Well, I did it, created the first stash hunt stash and here are the coordinates:
N 45 17.460 W122 24.800
"Lots of goodies for the finders. Look for a black plastic bucket buried most of the way in the ground. Take some stuff, leave some stuff! Record it all in the log book. Have Fun!
"Stash contains: Delorme Topo USA software, videos, books, food, money, and a slingshot!” [1]
His concept was accepted eagerly and soon stashes, as they were called at the time, began to crop up in the far reaches of the world. Rampant conversation about the new idea quickly led to discussion about the less-than-desirable term "stash", and on May 30, Matt Stum suggested an alternative name, "geocache", reasoning, “Several people have already stated their dislike for the term "stash" on the basis that it sounds illegal…The word cache both brings forth feelings of nostalgia for the days of exploring, as well as a "techie" feeling for those that associate it with computer memory.”
[edit] Biography
Ulmer grew up in Jacksonville, Florida. As a child in the early 1950s, he built transistor radios in band aid boxes and souped up mini bikes that reportedly went over 100MPH in a quarter mile. According to a letter from a childhood friend, “Let me assure you Dave Ulmer is NOT your ordinary man…At age 14 Dave completely overhauled a Buick automatic transmission...with no manuals or training…Get him to tell you about his invention of a high-output "still" made from a household water heater!”
As a retired adult, Ulmer pursues snowmobiling, dirt biking, wine making and a love for the “sweet spots” he finds while researching the thousands of geocaches hidden around the world. He also has a soft spot for cats.
Early in the evolution of geocaching, Ulmer began to have some misgivings about the game resulting in him dropping out of the evolution of the activity. He began to worry about legalities like permission issues and ecological damage. As early as June 12, only six weeks after his invention, Ulmer wrote, “You really don't see the problems with a sport until you get deeply involved in it…”
Several days later he wrote, “Imagine a tiny path through the forest with ferns that almost cover your feet as you walk. As the trail winds through the forest it passes a large clearing covered with fern. In the middle of the clearing is a large log. Sitting on this log gives you a beautiful view of mountain peaks.
“What a great place for a Geocache! The log is only 100 meters off the trail. Geocacher plants his cache under the log and records the coordinates for display on the Internet
“...Ten years later...The clearing is now covered with foot paths approaching the log from all directions. Ferns are trampled all over the place. Around the log is a 10 meter circle of mud. Initials of many visitors are carved in the log, geocache is there but empty…”
Frustrated, on June 17, the inventor of geocaching wrote, “OK, OK. I Give Up! All development on the sport of geocaching should cease.”
At that point, Dave dropped out of discussions on the GPS Stash list and other mailing lists relating to the activity, instead continuing on to pursue additional ideas such as wonderts - locations defined by a letter coding scheme to indicate its interest to others. In less than 2 months after the activity began, Ulmer stopped taking an active role in the evolution of the activity.
During the same month, Jeremy Irish from Seattle Washington stumbled upon the web site by Mike Teague, the creator of the first web site dedicated to the GPS Stash Hunt, while searching for information on GPS technology. After finding his first "stash" Irish came up with an idea to build a web site for the activity to make it easier to learn about and play. Irish contacted Teague and with his feedback started the web site Geocaching.com, the first official web site for the activity. At the time of its inception in September 2000, 4 months after the activity began, there were 75 caches listed in the world.
After two years of work building the geocaching.com web site, Groundspeak, the company that owns and operates Geocaching.com, worked out a deal with 20th Century Fox to run a small promotion for Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes movie. The promotion involved a dozen or so caches hidden, once a week, each containing a prop from the movie. According to Groundspeak, the promotion was done for free as the company considered it to be a unique and fun activity for geocachers. Even today some of the Project APE caches have outlasted the movie and are coveted finds to geocachers.
It was during this period that Ulmer became more and more disillusioned with the evolution of his idea after finding one of the props, a club, from one of the Project APE caches hidden near his home. Assuming that Groundspeak was profiting from the activity he posted his remarks in the log entry for that listing. According to Ulmer his log was removed because they were his political views. He was later banned from the Groundspeak forums.
Ulmer wrote in the Yahoo GPSstash group on June 2, 2001, “Greetings! Since my log of winning the A.P.E #2 cache hunt was censored off of Geocaching.com, I thought I would make just a few comments here in hopes of a little more tolerance of my views.
“Here is what I said that was censored: (I hope I remember exactly)
"Yep, I got there first! Dave Ulmer Creator/Inventor of Geocaching found the A.P.E #2 cache all by myself... I would tell my hunt story but this web site would then claim Copyright on my work as they havedone with Geocaching itself... Dave Ulmer, Creator"
Soon after, he removed all of his text, coordinates, and other related information for his caches, and then archived them. Also about the same time, Groundspeak removed mention of Ulmer by name in their published version of the history of geocaching. In May 2006, the website once again revised their history account, including mention of Ulmer by name.
For the next few years Ulmer dropped off again from the activity. However, in recent years, Dave Ulmer has returned to the activity as a celebrity, such as accepting free cruises as payment for spending time with paying geocachers.
