The Story Behind CrewConnect

CrewConnect started in a hotel room in Sarasota, during the National Championships. My daughters were out practicing, and I had some time to kill.

Throughout the rowing season, I had met dozens of parents and heard countless stories about their children. But I kept running into the same problem: I knew the rowers' names, but I couldn’t always connect them to their parents. My daughters would talk about teammates, but I couldn’t put faces to names. I’d meet parents at dinner, only to forget which child was theirs or what boat they rowed in.

It struck me that something was missing. Rowing is an unusually close-knit community. Athletes spend countless hours training together, families travel to the same regattas, and parents spend entire weekends along riverbanks cheering for kids they’ve watched grow up. Yet there wasn’t a simple way to understand how everyone was connected.

I wanted to meet a parent and immediately understand who their child was, which school they attended, and which boat they rowed in. When my daughter’s lineup was announced, I wanted to see who else was in the boat and connect those athletes to the families I’d come to know.

So I built CrewConnect.

I have four daughters, three of whom have rowed at Saugatuck Rowing Club, with two continuing their rowing journeys at Stanford. Rowing has been an important part of our family’s life, and I’ve come to appreciate just how special this community is.

I’m also admittedly terrible with names and faces. CrewConnect began as a personal solution to a simple problem: helping me better understand the people who were such a big part of my daughters’ lives.

There is no business model behind CrewConnect. No advertising, no plan to monetize, and no interest in selling anyone’s information. I built it for fun, because I thought it would be useful. And because this information involves athletes, families, and their relationships, I take privacy and responsible handling of it extremely seriously.

At its heart, CrewConnect is simply about people. Connecting athletes to teammates, parents to families, and everyone to the rowing community they share.

I built something I wanted for myself. I hope others find it useful, too.