In December, Airbnb launched a new nonprofit organization called Airbnb.org, an effort focused on “helping people share housing and resources with each other in times of crisis.” Meanwhile, since 2013, San Francisco-based startup CoWorkr has been paving the way toward better workspace experiences through the deployment of a sensors-as-a-service technology platform. What do these two trailblazing entities have in common? Both are led in part from northern Michigan.

Meet Kristen Berlacher and Keenan May. She’s the social impact lead for Airbnb and senior manager for Airbnb.org programs; he’s cofounder of CoWorkr. The wife-and-husband team relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to northern Michigan in December of 2019, drawn back by family ties and fond memories of growing up or vacationing here, as well as a desire to raise their newborn daughter in a smaller community.

“We left San Francisco after seven years, and we brought our jobs with us,” May tells The Ticker. “We had to figure it out before the workforce implemented all of these changes and work-from-home capabilities [due to COVID-19], but it was still a super easy transition. And it’s even easier to do now.”

While Airbnb.org is technically a new organization, it’s actually the continuation of an effort that Airbnb has had in place for the better part of a decade. In 2012, after New York City was impacted by Hurricane Sandy, an Airbnb host in Brooklyn reached out to the company to see if she could offer her rental for free to people who had been displaced by the storm. Airbnb ran with the idea, creating a system that made it possible for Airbnb hosts to offer housing to evacuees and others in need. More than 1,000 hosts joined in to help with the Hurricane Sandy recovery effort.

In the ensuing years, that concept – of Airbnb hosts opening up their homes to people in need – became a common thread in the wake of disasters. Airbnb hosts have helped provide housing to relief workers in the wake of the 2015 earthquake in Nepal; to families attending funerals or visiting hospitalized loved ones in the aftermath of the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando; to refugees fleeing conflict in their home countries; to those displaced by the 2018 California wildfires; and to frontline healthcare workers in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2017, Airbnb expanded the effort by creating a program called Open Homes. Now the Open Homes initiative has been spun off as a standalone nonprofit and renamed Airbnb.org. As its own charitable entity, Airbnb.org has the flexibility to operate independently of its namesake corporation, with its own board of directors and the ability to do its own fundraising and development.

As head of programs, Berlacher’s role with Airbnb.org involves overseeing a global team that monitors events around the world 24 hours a day and seven days a week – always ready to leverage Airbnb services in the event of a disaster. That process also often involves collaborating with government agencies and NGOs on the ground in disaster regions, to ensure an effective emergency response.

While managing such a worldwide effort from a small corner of northern Michigan has its hurdles (“So much Zoom,” Berlacher laughs), she says the Traverse City area is as good a place to be as any as she leads the initiative.

“[Airbnb] is based in San Francisco, but the team that I oversee is truly global,” she says. “So, me being based [closer to] the East Coast is actually pretty ideal for meetings with my colleagues who are in other time zones around the world. I’m still able to connect with San Francisco, but I'm also in a more friendly time zone for my European or other colleagues.”

May, meanwhile, is an architect by trade whose path led him from University of Michigan to the San Francisco tech scene, and ultimately to starting CoWorkr. He describes the core of the business as “sensor-based data collection for corporate real estate,” where “ultra-low-power sensors” pair with artificial intelligence to monitor “how people are using spaces.” Real estate teams, particularly those that manage office buildings, then use this so-called “utilization data” to inform their decisions for facility management or future workplace design.

CoWorkr doesn’t have the household-name status that Airbnb does, but the startup does do business globally. May notes that COVID-19 and the move away from 100-percent capacity office spaces has prompted clients to use CoWorkr sensors as a means of driving decisions about return-to-work plans, office safety protocols, and other pivots in workspace use, design, and experience. Some of those users are based in the U.S., but May says strategic partnerships around the globe have allowed CoWorkr to also establish strong footholds in the Europe and Asia Pacific markets.

While Berlacher and May made their move to northern Michigan before the pandemic – first to Traverse City, where they set up shop at 20Fathoms until the pandemic hit; then to Empire, where they live now – their ability to run global projects from the region plays into a larger trend that has only accelerated in the past year. With more companies allowing full-time remote work arrangements for their employees, desirable places to live like northern Michigan have become top destinations for professionals suddenly cut loose from big-city ties – a fact reflected by a recent boom in the local real estate market.

“So far, we couldn't be happier,” Berlacher says of working remotely from northern Michigan. “You can always second guess yourself, but we're feeling really good about the decision [to move here], and love seeing our daughter thrive here. So we're grateful, and I'm excited for the day we can get out in the world more and enjoy what Traverse City has to offer fully: the restaurants, the experiences, and all the kinds of things that are on pause right now.”

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misleadingly stated that both Airbnb.org and CoWorkr were being 'run' from northern Michigan. While Berlacher and May lead those respective businesses remotely from their shared home in northern Michigan, the companies are both based on the West Coast.

Photo credit: Mae Stier