Who built this — and why

Built by someone
who got tired of waiting.

Stephanie spent years going to events, joining groups, and genuinely trying to find her people in Spokane. The community she was looking for was not missing. It was scattered. Hidden in niches. Quietly eroding as budget cuts hit women first, as they always do.

She stopped looking and started building.

Origin Story

Why HIKE exsit.?

I left the corporate space in late 2024 and started building my own businesses out of necessity, overworked, overqualified, and watching AI reshape the hiring process in real time. It was a mess. So, I did what you are supposed to do. Joined the chamber, went to the networking events, showed up.

I have lived around the world. I know what it feels like to be in a room with a real range, different backgrounds, different experiences, different ways of seeing the world. And I kept noticing that the people I was looking for were not always in the rooms I was in. Not because they were not out there. But because the existing spaces were not built for them either.

The connections were not sticking. I wanted something that went deeper.

Then we lost the SNAP Women's Business Center funding at the end of 2024. The resources and summit they used to run for women were evaporating. So a group of us started talking about building something to fill that gap. Something actionable. No fluff, no awareness theater, actual tools for women.

So HIKE was built. Around a different premise. That competition is not the problem. Tearing other people down is the problem.

I am competing with myself to do better and collaborating with everyone else because there is plenty to go around.

Not just money, knowledge, relationships, access, opportunity. All of it exists in this community. It is just siloed. Disconnected. Never got introduced. HIKE is the connective tissue. It is about changing where resources flow and who they flow between.

Set the record straight

What HIKE is and isn't.

HIKE is →

Connective tissue, not competition. Built to link what exists and fill what is missing.
Research-backed. Every decision is grounded in what we know about community resilience and how real relationships form.
For the full workforce. Business owners, employees, caregivers, stay-at-home parents. If you are a woman navigating work and life in the Inland Northwest, you belong here.
Genuinely diverse by design. Not a curated room. Representative of what Spokane actually looks like.
Digitally accessible first. Not everyone can make it to a Thursday evening event.

HIKE is not→

A replacement for what already exists. HIKE is additive, built to connect and amplify, not compete.
Only for entrepreneurs. Most of the workforce is not a founder. HIKE is built for all of it.
A curated highlight reel. We are here for the real version, honest, accessible, and representative.
One person's vision imposed on a community. HIKE is guided by an advisory board and shaped by community input.
A traditional networking group. It is infrastructure.

The founder

Meet Stephanie High.

Stephanie is what happens when a neuropsychology nerd gets a passport, a tolerance for chaos, teaches herself to vibe code, and absolutely no interest in doing things the "normal" or "typical" way. It's her understanding that her first words were, "Mommy, I do it myself."

She started in corporate marketing at Sony at 18, ended up in Tokyo, walked across town to ASICS global, stayed in Japan for nearly a decade, freelanced for over a year through Mexico and Belize, and only came back to the US when the universe made the decision for her (thank you, COVID).

From San Diego, she eventually landed in Spokane for a job that didn't work out as planned, finished her Master's in performance psychology, relaunched her business, and founded HIKE with Her. She is a PhD candidate in psychology with a specialization in minority trauma and community resilience.

Connect with Stephanie

The 2026 Advisory Circle

The women guiding what comes next.

The HIKE Advisory Board is a cross-sector group of accomplished women serving as strategic partners in building what this region actually needs. They are not figureheads. They show up.