LOLO — Radd Icenoggle combined his background in biology and software development with his love for science and the Western Montana environment where he grew up. He created Nature Tools, a suite of apps and programs designed to help users connect with the world around them.
“It's a cliche, but if you understand, you can care about something. If you care about something, you want to protect it,” Icenoggle said. “Kind of this intellectual ownership of it, ‘Hey, I know what that does. I know how old that is. I know how that formed.’”
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The idea for Nature Tools came while Icenoggle was trying to solve a problem that was plaguing him: his constant curiosity. He always wants to know more about the way the natural world works. Often, those answers are buried in government documents, university research papers and thousands and thousands of other sources.
“I’m kind of a knowledge junkie. I really want to know!” Icenoggle said. “How do I get this all together in a package that I can use?”
He started on the first app, the Montana Field Guide. It offers a searchable bank of information about all sorts of species, from their habitat, characteristics, behavior and more. It is available for free on the iPhone and Android app stores.
“From there grew the idea to grow a whole ecosystem of apps that accomplish the same thing, so that when someone goes to a place, they can get understanding of that place,” Icenoggle said. “I can do the geologic history. I can do soils. I can do climate. I can do the water.”
So far, he has created a mix of free and paid software, six apps for the iPhone, two for the Android and two plug-ins for Adobe Lightroom. One offers a simulation of Glacial Lake Missoula floods. Another aims to transport you through your phone camera, showing details of a further away landscape.
“I can take my phone. I can point it at a place and, not only get a peak name or a property name or that sort of stuff, I can do geologic map overlays,” Icenoggle said. “Or I can click a button and, now, I can take that place over there, bring it to me and get all the same information about what's over there without going over there!”
Icenoggle has even more birding, angling and geology apps in the works. He has poured hours and hours into the software, often early in the morning or late at night, so he can still get outside during the day.
“I have the better part of nine months with about 60 to 80 hours a week into this,” he said. “It is just me. I am the president and the janitor, so I am everything.”
He plans to keep making apps and programs until he runs out of ideas.
“I have one that all it does is predator prey simulations so you can just sit there and ‘Oh, you know, I got three coyotes and 10 ground squirrels. What's gonna happen to the populations?” Icenoggle said.
Since launching Nature Tools earlier this summer, the positive feedback, and interest, has far surpassed Icenoggle’s expectations. In a little over a month, the Montana Field Guide app has been downloaded 20,000 times. He hopes the software allows people to better connect with and learn about their environment.
“I kind of expected my 10 friends to go ‘We like it,’ but it got much bigger than that really quick,” he said. “We got a 5-star, so we must be doing something right.”
