I’m extremely happy to announce that Clif Bar & Company has officially become 20 percent employee owned! Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford (Clif Bar husband and wife owners) have been devising a way to give back to the many Clif Bar employees that make this company thrive. So they’ve turned their family-owned common stock into an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Employees through the ESOP own 20 percent of the company, while Gary and Kit retain the remaining 80 percent.

“All along we wanted to create a company where we would want to work,” said Kit. “Employee ownership is one more way we could run a different kind of business: one that inspires a team of people to make the kind of delicious, nutritious food we’d like to eat, and that strives for a healthier, more sustainable world.”

For Gary, “Our company is our people. By retaining private, employee ownership we will continue to have the freedom and flexibility to build a sustainable business with long-term focus for future generations.” No change in management structure will take place, with Gary and Kit remaining majority owners and co-CEOs of the company.

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If you’ve been following us on Twitter, Facebook or right here on the Clif Blog, then you’ve surely seen some of our fun, wacky adventures of office life. Well, chalk this one up on the big board: The 1st Annual Clif Bar Iron Cupcake* Throwdown!

Eat your heart out, Bobby Flay. We’ve had more than a dozen Clif Bar & Company participants and a panel of Clif volunteer judges. After after the judging, we put the remainder of cupcakes up for donation to the rest of the company with all proceeds going toward the AIDS Walk San Francisco. Looks like we’ve raised over $400 in total.

The Throwdown featured two key ingredients. The first, lavender. And the second...ready for this? Bacon! Yes, bacon cupcakes. Balancing sweet and salty vaulted creativity to its finest.

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The people here at Clif Bar & Company are loaded with incredible travels—seriously. And with an eight-week sabbatical awarded every seven years with the company, why wouldn’t we be? So after listening to countless tales of amazing worldly adventures, I figured it’s time to share. Here are 12 inspiring trips that will leave you yearning for a life-changing vacay of your own!

1. From Cape Town to Cairo
Clif Traveler: Claire

My sister and I had planned to spend the last week of our African adventure (which began in Cape Town, then routed through Kenya and Mauritius) in Madagascar where we would be lemur spotting, hiking in the national parks, catching the local transport taxi-brusses and walking down the Avenue of Baobabs. We initially convinced each other that we could simply avoid a developing military coup, sneak away to the less-populated parts of the country and continue on with our agenda. Then we heard that the U.N. was evacuating all non-essential personnel, and we discovered that all flights into the country were being diverted.

So, time for plan B. Having already spent time in Kenya, both of our curiosities peaked at a 4 a.m. scheduled departure to Cairo glowing on the international departures board, and we set off to wake up the only travel agent in the airport. Moments later our flights were purchased and, less than eight hours after that, we landed in Egypt.

The photos document a snippet of the best trip I never planned – finding the 357 bus after a crash course in Arabic numerals, navigating Cairo’s vibrant street markets, sampling Egyptian coffee and its famous accompaniments, the obligatory camel, the majestic pyramids in Giza, marveling at the resourcefulness of Egyptian taxi repair-work, and ending up in Alexandria where the Nile meets the Mediterranean…just a little bit farther away than we had set out to travel from our starting point the month before. At the end of the day, the most amazing part of the trip was not necessarily the places we visited or the things we saw, but rather the way in which we saw them – without expectation, without a master plan – without a clue really. But sometimes the best journeys are the ones that take you for a ride.

2. Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Clif Traveler: Carly

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We make LOTS of stuff. So if you ever find yourself on the hunt for specific Clif Bar & Company products, you’ll probably want to give our handy new Store Locator a whirl. It’s incredibly simple. Simply enter your zip code, and check the box(es) for the product(s) you’re looking for and click “Submit.” You’re done!

Now you have a nice list of your closest retail locations and a visual icon for what products each store carries (We still recommend calling your local store(s) ahead of time to determine availability.)

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If you’ve been following the Clif Bar Blog, well, you saw yesterday’s launch of the 2010 CLIF BAR 2 Mile Challenge (a huge thanks to Ryan and everyone involved here at Clif for making it happen). If you’ve yet to check it out, head on over to the 2MC website and get started!

Along with yesterday’s announcement debuted Join the Ride—an awesome stop-motion video shot entirely on bike cameras—hosted on the brand new Clif Bar & Company YouTube channel.

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