The Immigrant High-Rise Window Cleaner: His Story

Immigrant Experience: Juju Julien Loves the Possibilities by Jesse James McTigue. WE DO WINDOWS – French-born new American citizen Juju Julien has led a peripatetic life. Now settled in Telluride, he says the American Dream has nothing to do with money; it’s about opportunity.

There are many things about Juju Julien that are French through and through. He speaks English with a heavy French accent, he sips cold, white wine throughout our interview and he is in a whimsical love affair. His affair, however, is not with a woman. Instead he is in love with possibility and independence – two ideals that also make him very American. Julien was born in France, but seemingly raised all over the world. Instead of a place, the vast experiences and eclectic group of people he encountered influenced him most throughout his formative years.

“Sometimes you take a look at your life, and it’s like shaking sand [through a sifter],” Julien explains. “And, you see what stays on top – the key moments [in your life].” For him, what is left represents those experiences and people who have made him who he is today. After sifting his life, the substrate that remains is boarding school, traveling and ski patrol. Julien was first sent to boarding school when he was seven. “My mom couldn’t handle me,” he explains, then with a wry grin adds, “I had too much energy.” Although he was away from his mom for most of his childhood, he claims he still felt her influence. “She raised me from a distance,” he explains.

After floating through different boarding schools, Julien finally found one where he fit in, an international school in Le Chambon sur Lignon called College Cevenol. "I loved it,” he explains, “because there were kids from all over the world and teachers from all over the world, you do your own schedule, and it’s in the woods.” Julien’s education was supplemented by intermittent, international trips with his dad. His dad left the family when Juju was seven and worked internationally as a civil engineer, completing stints in Algeria, Kuwait and Haiti, to name a few. When Juju was 15, he recalls biking with his dad from France to Algeria. “He has many flaws,” Julien explains, “but he taught me a way of traveling, which is, you leave everything you know at home and you go with a naked brain.”

Three years later, in 1986, Julien accompanied his dad to Haiti, where he volunteered to improve the island’s water distribution system. “I saw people who had huge resumes, hydraulic engineers,” he recalls, “but they couldn’t deal in Haiti.” But for Julien, confronting remote areas and unconventional situations with a “naked brain” is how he thrived. Ski patrol became an obvious career fit for Julien, so after finishing school, he moved to Tignes and began working as a patrolman. In retrospect, patrol taught Julien the skills he would rely on in all of his future pursuits. “Patrol was huge.” Julien says. “You work hard, you work on a team and learn the mountains…you need to know about mountaineering, you need to know about explosives, you fly in helicopters. I don’t think people realize how much skill it takes to be a ski patroller.”

For the next decade, Julien took advantage of the flexibility of ski patrol life, working in the Alps and Australia; spending a year with a tribal group, the Kanaks, on New Caledonia; and completing a U.S. ski safari that included two weeks in Squaw Valley, Jackson Hole, Aspen and Telluride ski resorts. “I brought like 20 pounds of cheese and sausage,” Julien recalls. “You can find good wine here, but good cheese and sausage is hard to find. You travel like this with ski patrollers, you get the best.” This was Julien’s first introduction to the U.S.

Through a string of French-ski-patrol-exchange participants and like-minded-mountain-people, Julien returned to Telluride in 2000 for a friend’s wedding. Julien made fast friends, experienced his first Bluegrass Festival, fell in with the lifestyle and continued to come back for three-month stints – the maximum time his visas would allow. “You never think you can overstay your visa,” Julien recalls, “but you love it so much, it’s worth it to stay and be illegal than go home.” After a few visits, Julien fell into the temptation and overstayed his visa.

During this time, Julien saw an opportunity to use his technical rope and rigging skills to extend his work visa. He would go to England to obtain a worldwide certification for rope access and rigging, something he says doesn’t’ really exist in the U.S. It would allow him to do high-angle work on dams, towers, windmills, oil rigs, buildings and, most importantly, give him a special talent qualifying for him for a longer visa. The catch: He was currently illegal in the U.S. and couldn’t get out. “I didn’t want to cross the border [into Canada] with an expired visa,” he explains. “They would ban for me for ten years.” Instead, Julien crossed into Canada hidden in the back of a truck, then flew home to get his paperwork in order.

Julien has lived in the U.S. since 2002 legally, and has since become a U.S. citizen. In 2005, he started RopeTech, an employee-owned window-washing and roof-shoveling business. Julien, along with one of his partners, also work wherever opportunity calls. “Now we work in Alaska, we work everywhere,” Julien explains. “I was in South Korea working on an oil ship.” He grins and points toward the company’s mantra, embroidered on his one-piece, denim jumpsuit. It reads, “Don’t smoke, but love to get high.”

For Julien, the allure of living in the US has been the fulfillment of his version of the American dream. “My French friends talk about the American Dream, but they don’t know what it means," he explains. “They think it means making a million dollars, but it has nothing to do with money, it’s about opportunity. It’s more about being excited by doing something of your own – I love the possibilities.”

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