Taking the Scenic Route to Team Building at DMC’s Seattle YOE

Yearly Office Events, or “YOEs,” are a cornerstone of DMC’s culture. They are multi-day social gatherings hosted by a regional office that offer employees an opportunity to connect outside of project work, strengthen relationships, and spend meaningful time together as a team.

Over the years, YOEs have taken many forms, including history tours, river floats, pub crawls, ski trips, and scenic hikes. While the activities vary, the goal remains the same: creating shared experiences that bring coworkers together and strengthen the connections that make DMC unique.

This August, DMC employees traveled to Seattle to close out the summer with a weekend of hiking, river floating, cooking, and relaxing. The event officially kicked off after-work on Thursday and concluded on Sunday, and by the end of the event, Seattle’s YOE had something for everyone, including Nooner and Bear, the two dog companions on this year’s trip.

Side Quest: Exploring Olympic National Park, Mount Rainier, and Pike Place

As a precursor to the official start of the Seattle YOE, several DMC team members went on a hiking trip through Olympic National Park, a nearly 900,000-acre wilderness park located on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. This vast park contains glaciated mountains, 60 miles of coastline, and a temperate rainforest considered one of the wettest areas in the continental United States.

They spent Wednesday afternoon hiking a portion of the Hoh River Trail to Blue Glacier Trail. The full trail spans about 35 miles and gains 5,633 feet in elevation. The team hiked roughly 3 miles round trip, snapping pictures of both the oddities and natural beauty they encountered from the coastline to the old-growth forests of the Hoh Rainforest.

Within that 6-mile hike, they managed to experience the vast and unique ecosystem on display in Olympic National Park while also summiting Mount Storm King to a beautiful sunset. “My favorite part of the day was hiking Mount Storm King,” Andrew recounted. “The views from the top with the sun setting were beautiful, and it had some challenging climbs.”

On Thursday, the small, adventurous group continued their side quest to the base of Mount Rainier, an active stratovolcano in the Cascade Range with a summit of 14,000 feet. You’ve likely seen pictures of its iconic snowy peaks splashed across the pages of nature and hiking magazines. It’s a quintessential part of Washington’s landscape. They hiked along Skyline Loop Trail, approximately 5.5 miles, and gained an elevation of 1,700 feet. The weather was perfect for their hike through Mount Rainier National Park, with clear views of the valley below once they reached Panorama Point.

While one group got an early start to all of the hiking, the rest of the DMC team hung back in Seattle, exploring the city after work together and visiting the classic sites like Pike Place, where they visited the fish stands and flower shops scattered around the public market.

These two excursions were great side adventures leading into the YOE weekend, and when everyone finally came together at the rental house on Thursday evening, the Seattle YOE officially began with the traditional first-night pizza night, where everyone was able to mingle and rest before the first activity the next day.

Day One: Floating Away on the Yakima River

The first official event of the Seattle YOE was a river float. On Friday morning, the team packed up after breakfast, dogs, floaties, drinks, and all, and spent the afternoon floating down the Yakima River. The river float proved to be a bit of an adventure in its own right, “Once we got the dogs settled, everyone finally relaxed,” Shannon explained about Nooner and Bear’s initial reluctance. “The temperature was perfect though, in the low 80s.”

For those who spent Wednesday and Thursday hiking, the river float provided a chance to rest their tired feet. For everyone, it was an opportunity to slow down and connect with coworkers outside the office, strengthening relationships and making connections that might not otherwise develop through day-to-day client work.

After the float, the team headed back to base camp for dinner. Over lasagna, everyone spent the rest of the evening playing games and chatting about the day and the next day’s hike.

Day Two: Hiking Mount Catherine

Well-rested after a day floating on the Yakima River, the group started Saturday with breakfast cooked at the house—blueberry pancakes, eggs, and bacon. They then packed up for the second day of the YOE, a hike up Mount Catherine.

Mount Catherine is part of the Cascade Range, the same mountain range as Mount Rainier. However, it reaches an elevation of about 5,000 feet, compared to Mount Rainier’s 14,000 feet. The mountain is located near Snoqualmie Pass and Keechelus Lake and is a popular destination for Nordic snowshoeing in the winter.

The weather was rainy and cloudy, but that didn’t dampen their spirits. With Bear in tow, they hit the trail, snapping pictures of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest and taking in the views once they reached the summit.

While the total hike was only about 3 miles round trip, it packs approximately 1,300 feet of elevation gain into just 1.5 miles. Hiking guides urge climbers to “prepare for a hike that climbs aggressively with switchbacks” along the mountain’s southern face. As hikers approach the summit, huckleberry bushes line the trail during the summer months, and visitors can sometimes spot the rare and endangered Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly.

After taking pictures at the summit and giving Bear a much-needed break, the team made their trek back down the mountain and returned to the house for a quick dip in the hot tub, games, and the final group dinner.

For a few DMC new hires, this was their first time attending a YOE. Over the course of three days, Lucas Davis, Rob Orr, and Liz Kalika, all new Systems Engineers, had the chance to spend time with their coworkers and teammates outside of the office.

Whether building connections on the trails or hanging out with teammates back at the house, these shared experiences will undoubtedly help them collaborate more effectively on client projects. Building these relationships is one of the reasons YOEs are especially valuable for new hires, giving them opportunities to connect with teammates in ways that would be difficult to replicate in a typical work environment.

Day Three: Final Breakfast and Packing Up

On the final day of the Seattle YOE, everyone settled in for one last breakfast together. From hiking and floating down the Yakima River to playing games and cooking meals together, everyone had a favorite memory from the weekend to take back to their respective office.

Yearly office events are an important part of what makes DMC’s company culture so unique. They provide an opportunity for team members from different offices to come together and get to know the people they work with every day, as well as connect with colleagues on entirely different teams. Either way, YOEs are a great way to bring everyone together several times a year to share experiences that are truly special.