Area?s outdoors companies need to unite

BOULDER — It’s time to officially raise the city’s unofficial reputation as “outdoor Mecca of the universe,” or risk losing the title to more aggressive cities, according to outdoor industry leaders.

The Active Boulder trade group may be a good way to get things moving, several in the outdoor trade industry said at The Boulder County Business Report’s CEO Roundtable on the outdoors industry held Tuesday, June 28, at Holland & Hart LLP’s office in Boulder.

Active Boulder members must speak out publicly about what they need to continue to thrive here, said Kim Couponas, a co-founder of GoLite, an outdoor product company based in Boulder who is involved in groups such as Active Boulder and the Outdoor Industry Association, another Boulder-based trade group.

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Outdoor industry-friendly cities such as Ogden, Utah, and Portland, Oregon, have actively courted GoLite to move, Couponas said. She added that she and husband and GoLite co-founder Demetri Couponas love Boulder and don’t plan to move.

“It’s making our needs known (to city government officials) and saying these are the things we’re facing – like ridiculous zoning laws, that they make it hard to hold an event here, and our employees have to live 30 miles out of town,” Couponas said.

Towns like Tuscon, Arizona, and Bend, Oregon, offer incentives to professional athletes to encourage them to come to live and train in those places rather than in Boulder, said Barry Siff, former owner of 5430 Sports, which was sold to the company that runs Ironman triathalons in 2009. Tuscon bills itself as a winter training spot for athletes, for example, Siff said.

“It’s something Boulder has been ignoring and definitely needs to step up,” Siff said. “We need to build on our strengths, especially in these economic times. We may be losing out on opportunities.”

Active Boulder members also are responsible for raising the group’s profile so it can be more effective as an industry “voice,” said Thomas Prehn, director of cycling products company CatEye Service & Research Center based in Boulder.

“We have been ignoring (the outdoor industry) as an industry,” Prehn said. “That’s not healthy, because the more companies there are here, the better it will be for all of us, as a larger resource of people to work with and network with.”

Boulder-based Backpacker magazine is one company that has been frustrated by its attempts to put on events in Boulder, said Kent Ebersole, magazine publisher. The magazine just put on a “bouldering”/climbing event in New York City’s Central Park, for example, because it cost about half of what it have been in Boulder, Ebersole said.

The Outdoor Industry Association also ends up holding many events outside of the region — many times because there’s not enough space for them here, said Lori Herrera, chief operating officer of the trade group. There’s no room for an annual 300-person industry CEO event, for example, she said. The group holds its trade shows in Salt Lake City and other venues.

“We go to Portland and to North Carolina. We would love to be in Boulder every few years on that,” Herrera said of the CEO event.

At the same time, city workers should be given kudos for helping accommodate a rapidly growing number of outdoor events in recent years, Siff said.

“North Boulder Park has (bicycle) criteriums all the time. The number of events has quadrupled in recent years,” Siff said.

On at least two general quality-of-life issues, Boulder’s elected officials have worked hard to put together a public bike path network that is “virtually unmatched” in the country and has worked on getting housing where employees can afford to live, said Scott Havelick, a trademark lawyer at Holland & Hart’s Boulder office. Havelick suggested that folks in the industry work more on figuring out what they need to stay happy where they’re at.

“Part of it is our responsibility to coordinate with one another and network to create the fabric (to address issues),” Havelick said. “We could focus on ? what do we have going, so we don’t jeapordize it.”

Boulder has gotten a “decent outdoor profile” without having to operate in the same way other cities do in the past, Havelick said.

“In the running world, the Bolder Boulder put Boulder on the map. So I’m just wondering if the traditional models of physical growth are what you really need here,” Havelick said. “What I have always asked, is, what is our goal?”