Elevation Gain

Mats Cooper ’98 (engineering) has been a hiker his whole life. From climbing Pikes Peak in Colorado with his family as a child to exploring the San Gabriel Mountains with the Delta H club as a student at Harvey Mudd College, Mats’ love of the outdoors and his commitment to clean energy have been foundational to his experience.

Currently, Mats is enjoying the outdoors via multiple arduous challenges—53 challenges to be exact. As of October 2025, Mats was 42 peaks into his goal of summiting 53 of Colorado’s 14ers, named mountain peaks that reach over 14,000 feet.

“This project has been a great way to get offline for extended periods of time and really think in ways the day-to-day routine does not allow,” says Mats, who is COO of A-la-Car, a food delivery service in Colorado.

Over the last two summers, Mats has summited 41 peaks, and his goal is to get to 50 by July 1, 2026, his 50th birthday. He’s also considering celebrating the United States’ 250th birthday on July 4 by climbing 14,256 feet to the top of Longs Peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park Wilderness.

Mats’ “lifestyle job” at A-la-Car is the perfect fit for an avid mountain climber, allowing him and the company owner to “ski all day and have a nice life in the mountains without too much job stress,” he says. “I’m usually in the role of dispatcher every night, so it’s a kind of video game to make sure that food gets made at a certain time and picked up and delivered as fast as possible. It’s a dynamic team environment, communicating with the drivers and the restaurants.” In contrast to his job, hiking is more solitary, though Mats finds a robust community on 14ers.com, a web forum for people interested in Colorado climbing.

Mats endeavors to make each hiking trip as environmentally sustainable as possible. By driving an electric vehicle and camping instead of staying in hotels, he can have zero-emission adventures. He even summited Antero Peak (14,269 feet) by e-bike, conserving his own energy as well as avoiding the use of fossil fuel.

In October, Mats summited Mount Massive (14,429), his final peak in the central range of the Rocky Mountains 14ers. “I really hope everyone gives the outdoors a try with the 14ers challenge or something similar,” he says. With plans to climb Mount Rainier in Washington State next summer, he invites fellow Mudd alumni to join him.