About

About Subterra Ops

We build modern, dependable tools for people who explore, document, and work in remote places, and we use them ourselves.

Our story

Subterra Ops started with two brothers and a cave. Blake and Austin Goodsell began caving together in 2021 and haven’t slowed down since. Blake took to survey and cartography, while Austin got into the exploration part of caving.

The more caves we visited, the more we noticed the same problem. The tools for documenting them were old, hard to use, and slow to improve. People doing skilled, often unpaid work deserved better, so we started building it.

Subterra Ops is based in Logan, Utah. The name points to where we started, underground. It doesn’t limit where we go.

Make tools as good as the people who use them.

Who we are

Blake Goodsell in a red caving suit and gray helmet with a headlamp, at a cave wall.

Co-founder

Blake Goodsell

Blake is a Utah cave surveyor. He started surveying soon after he started caving and has kept at it ever since. He surveys regularly, and the maps he makes are part of why we care about better tools. Much of what we build begins with something he ran into in the field and thought should be easier.

Austin Goodsell in a yellow caving suit, helmet, and harness, standing in a cave passage beside a hanging rope.

Co-founder

Austin Goodsell

Austin is a caver and search and rescue volunteer in northern Utah. He’s drawn to the exploration side of caving, and he spends much of his time on cave trips and in remote places. He and Blake cave together often, and those trips are where many of our ideas for better tools start.

How we work

The values behind every decision

Remember who we serve

We build for the person in the field, not for the boardroom. Every product decision starts with the people who use it. We don’t lose sight of where we came from as we grow.

Modern by default

Good design is as important as features and reliability. Tools for hard places should be easy to learn, fast to use, and worth opening.

Built to be relied on

Accuracy and reliability come before new features. If something doesn’t work yet, we say so.

Fair pricing

The essentials aren’t locked behind expensive plans. Prices make sense for individuals and volunteer groups.

Stay focused

We do tools for exploration, research, and rescue in remote places. We stay out of politics and social issues in everything the company says.

Serious

We care about the work and the people doing it. We keep the passion and the realism, and skip the corporate language.

Hear it first

Subterra Datum and Subterra Vector arrive in 2027. Send us an email and we’ll tell you the moment they’re ready.