Serious pastime

Owner sold his stake in software company to pursue his hobby

Some jobs have you climbing the walls. Daniel De Waal has experienced that twice.

He came to Summerlin eight years ago, after being hired away from a gaming company in his native South Africa. He was brought here to help open the Resort at Summerlin, which has since morphed into the JW Marriott.

But it soon became obvious the new facility was "hideously overrun," a fact which had him, figuratively, climbing the walls. Sensing everyone would lose their jobs, De Waal sought a new venue for supporting himself.

He and two partners, Bryan Bullard and Chad Little, set up their own computer software company. They wrote software for game-makers like Acres Gaming and Aristocrat Technologies. Their company Friendly Matrix built Web sites for numerous small casinos. Most importantly, they came up with software that allowed neighborhood taverns like Road Runner to offer slot player's clubs, just like the big casinos.

It was that last product that got the company noticed in a big way. International Game Technology bought Friendly Matrix in December of 2004 and, besides buying out the partners, gave all three of them contracts to work there.

De Waal used his portion of the buy-out to pay down the mortgage on his Summerlin home, get rid of miscellaneous debt and indulge in his hobby, rock climbing.

He's into the hobby so much that he bought the Powerhouse Climbing Center, 8201 W. Charleston Blvd. Now his work has him climbing the walls, literally.

After buying the business, De Waal said he set about renovating it as it had been opened in the early 1990s and had not been well maintained. He also gave it a new name -- the Red Rock Climbing Center.

"We redid the floor, bought new equipment," he said. "And I increased the staffing. I saw that as one of the reasons for its rundown condition, there wasn't enough staff."

The next phase will build a meeting room in the upper reaches. "My goal was to get it running the way it should be running," he said. "I wanted to make it a spectacular gym."

Part of that meant taking on a vacant shop space in the same strip mall. He turned it into a yoga studio, large enough for classes of 20 people.

The yoga studio fits in with the other businesses at the strip mall -- a bike shop, rock climbing equipment sales and a mountain guiding business. Those shops hold permits through the Bureau of Land management for various activities in Red Rock Cayon National Conservation Area -- biking, hiking and rock climbing.

Travis Graves is co-owner of Desert Rock Sports in the same shopping center. "I've seen an increase in business since Daniel took over," he said. "He's created enthusiasm (in the climbing community) by turning over routes, making them more challenging. Where I stand to benefit is he's pulling in people, people who transition to climbing at Red Rock."

De Waal plans to market the center to conventions and corporations as a package deal, good for team-building seminars. He also wants to appeal to residents.

"We're going to get some synergy going between the businesses, and just like the art district has First Fridays, we'll have something similar, a barbecue in the street kind of thing," he said.

De Waal explained it would feature organizations such as Friends of Red Rock, which can offer lectures and slideshows. The monthly event is set to be unveiled in January.

"This will be a lot more than just a place climbers go," DeWaal said.