Los Altos company uses Web to compile camp info for parents

By Mary Beth Hislop, Town Crier Staff Writer

Time is ticking away for parents bound and determined to keep the kiddies off the couch this summer and get them involved in real recreational activities. But summer camp sign-ups can be a frustrating feat of futility when considering Pete’s penchant for auto racing, Linda’s love for languages and Phillip’s fanaticism with physics – and juggling those with the family schedule.

Mike Musuris and Ted Forsman know all about it – particularly Forsman, who has three children and is privy to wife Keli and friends’ conversations comparing program curricula and scheduling information for summer camps. There was simply no one-stop shop for gathering information.

“It’s the travel agent problem,” Forsman said. “People want options.”

With a background in software and mathematics, Forsman called his childhood friend and Stanford graduate-school roommate, Musuris, whose specialty is mechanical engineering. In 2003, the two began collaborating ideas and surveying camps and parents to identify mutual requirements. In 2007, they launched CampPlanIt from offices on State Street in Los Altos.

CampPlanIt is a Web-based company that compiles camp options at its Web site for parents to survey with just a click of a mouse, and the information isn’t limited to summer camps.

“There’s been a significant amount of thought and planning,” Forsman said. “We’ve got a formula.”

While Musuris and Forsman admitted their families didn’t have extra money to send them to camp when they were children – “Our camps were ride your bikes up and down the street,” Musuris said – camp programs are attractive to parents because they often offer curricula children can’t get in public schools.

“Camps really augment the educational system,” Forsman said.

Many sports, dance and art classes once offered in grades K-12 are some of the first programs eliminated when schools face cutbacks due to state budget deficits. This year is no exception.

Moreover, camps offer children recreational and educational opportunities otherwise unavailable during summer months and double as day-care duty for working parents. “Camps fill all these needs,” Forsman said.

With approximately 105 camp institutions in 54 cities and nearly 1,200 camp programs from nine Bay Area counties logged in the database at CampPlanIt’s Web site, parents can filter the options based on available participation dates, types of activities matched to children’s interests and fee range. They can narrow the search and instantly retrieve information about the skill levels and ages the different camps target along with the proximity, dates, times and specific cost of each.

Categories include arts, outdoor/adventure, academic/educational, science/technology and religious camps with subcategories ranging from archaeology and archery to water sports and zoology. And yes – physics.

Information can be saved to a running schedule to compare options and e-mailed to other parents trying to coordinate their children’s schedules for shared activities.

They’re also developing software to register visitors through the CampPlanIt site. At this time, parents must complete the registration process through camp providers.

Parents aren’t the only ones who benefit. “Camps are constrained in getting the word out there,” Masuris said. “This is a cost-effective solution for the camp sites.”

Forsman likened the system to the Yellow Pages – lots of them – but with more information for parents over a larger geographical area and less cost in advertising for the camps.

Forsman said CampPlanIt’s Web site is completely secure. No information about families or children is shared with camp providers except rudimentary details, such as camp preference trends or the number of clicks at a camp’s site.

Plans for CampPlanIt include expansion to all metropolitan areas. “If it works in one place, we can replicate the system in another,” Musuris said.

But physics camp? “If a physics camp includes building and shooting off a rocket …” Musuris said.

For more information, visit www.CampPlanIt.net.

Contact Mary Beth Hislop at marybethh@latc.com.