What does one of Spin magazine’s Top Emerging Artist of 2025 need with an MBA?
Plenty, says Jeremy Climer (MBA 2021), whose musical alter ego, Mountain Climer, received the accolade from Spin last August, alongside nine other up-and-coming musical acts.
“I was on the phone with my best friend when I found out, and I couldn’t believe it,” he says. “I had visions of grandeur when I was younger, like any kid does, but if you would have told me when I was 15 that I was going to be in Spin, I would have said, ‘All right, so that means I got a tour bus, got the mansion in Malibu.’ Times have changed.”
Born and raised in Indiana, Climer started playing guitar in the early 1990s, eventually working in bands that toured around the country. When his daughter was born and he and his wife moved to Colorado after his wife landed an aerospace job at Boeing, he put the touring musician life on the backburner and shifted his focus to writing and recording music. Looking for a career shift from his previous job in liquor sales, he enrolled in the in-person MBA program at Daniels, making the shift to online classes when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, just months after his program began.
“I was 10 years older than everyone else in my cohort, so in a lot of ways, the MBA strengthened or reiterated things I had already learned,” says Climer, 45, of Broomfield, Colorado. “So much of it is applicable to being a working musician, like delegation and assessing people’s strengths and weaknesses. Some of the new things I learned came from electives—I took a branding class as an elective, which was really helpful as an artistic person.”
Now working in sales for FedEx, Climer continues to pursue music on the side, laying down basic instrumental tracks in his home studio and returning to Indiana to record vocals and finalize the recordings. He is currently working on an album named for his home state that features a mix of autobiographical songs and songs based on local history. As an independent musician, he handles all aspects of the business—booking gigs, fulfilling orders, selling merchandise—but he could use a little help when it comes to social media.
“If it were up to me, I would just write music and record it,” he says. “I would not be on Facebook; I would not do any of that stuff. But it’s all a necessary evil.”
He’s currently in talks with the professor of a social media marketing class at Daniels, hoping to sign on as a client to get assistance from social media-minded students. Long term, Climer is working with Denver-based producer Travis Dolan to build Four Lane Road Media, a record label and music coaching service he hopes will help to incubate young artists.
“My wife and I are looking at moving back to Indiana someday, and I would love to buy the studio I recorded at in Bloomington, which used to be an old church,” he says. “I’d like to give away as much of my time as I can to help high school kids or college kids who are in a band, trying to help them with things that it took me decades to learn the hard way—trying to help people miss some of the hurdles that I had to jump over two or three times.”
The Four Lane Road project is another reason Climer enrolled in the MBA program, hoping to build his skillset to run a music-related business in addition to his day job.
“I was just looking to add tools to the toolbox, because at the end of the day, I love music, I love people, and it doesn’t really matter what I do,” he says. “I like helping people and solving problems and networking and connecting people. Where I work is secondary to me.”