1012 Corridor

What if you could have your own personal park ranger by your side, before, during and after your vacation?

A former 10/12 corridor resident is making that possible, via the company she and her husband founded in Austin, Texas, after her graduation from the E.J. Ourso College of Business at LSU.

Carrie Little, whose great grandfather served in the Louisiana Legislature when Huey P. Long was governor, is now chief financial officer of BarZ Adventures.

The company has created what’s known as a GPS Ranger, which offers walking and driving tours of top destinations around the world. Educational content is triggered by the user’s GPS location, which means that if the device determines via GPS that you are standing, say, in front of the Washington Monument, color videos, audio, still images and other interactive content begin to play, providing you with key facts about particular points of interest.

Little’s husband, Lee, developed the concept after a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park in early 2001. He had a question about geysers, but couldn’t locate a park ranger to answer it. A German family standing nearby also seemed to be struggling with finding their way.

“He came back from that trip and started trying to marry the concept of MP3 and GPS together,” Little says. “He developed a prototype, then 9-11 hit and it got shelved. In 2005, technology finally got up with the idea, and now there are GPS devices able to play video.”

They opened the doors to BarZ Adventures in 2006, and Little used her experience as a CPA for a number of startup firms to get theirs going. Her husband, meanwhile, emerged as the front-man for promotions and sales.

“I think we make a nice pair, because he is a creative sales type that can generate business, and I am the one that keeps things in check, so we’re very balanced,” she says. “If we were both the same in our approach, the company never would have gotten off the ground. He’s willing to take risks; I’m not.”

BarZ gets its name from the Brahma bull, a tenacious breed her grandfather bred that revolutionized the cattle industry. By the same token, BarZ aims to revolutionize the tourism industry. Says Little: “It enhances the family vacation. Its interactivity brings the generations together.”

Their first customer was the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta. Most recently, BarZ has been working on a driving tour of the Creole Nature Trail in southwest Louisiana. The tour could be available as early as September.

Little’s favorite BarZ tours include those of Sedona, Ariz.; Victoria, British Columbia; Catalina Island; and Poplar Forest, Va. There’s also a GPS-enabled “spy” tour for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., which sends tourists on the hunt for clues at attractions throughout the city to solve a mystery.

The tours are available in four languages—English, Spanish, German and French—and for the hearing- and sight-impaired. BarZ has recently branched out into smartphone apps for the iPhone and the Android, with more than 250 tours.

So what’s next? Little says BarZ soon will be installing its devices for the hearing- and sight-impaired in the United States Capitol. The company is also working on a mobile Web app, which will play its tours on any mobile device regardless of the platform.

Little hasn’t forgotten her Louisiana roots. She has hired two interns this summer from LSU’s Stephenson Entrepreneurship Institute to work in marketing and software development.

“I miss the people, the food and the music,” she says. “And, of course, the LSU football.”