Active Front Range lifestyle lures industries, jobs

How ingrained the outdoor industry is in the Front Range’s economy can be surprising, even to a savvy public-relations professional in the field.

“If you went to a party in Seattle and people found out you were in the outdoor industry, everyone would ask you about it, because it wasn’t that common,” said Samantha Killgore, the U.S. marketing manager for Rab, a United Kingdom-based manufacturer of clothing for intense weather and mountaineering, and a former Seattle outdoor-industry public relations rep.

“Here it’s like everyone is connected to the outdoor industry somehow.”

A casual glance at information from the Boulder-based Outdoor Industry Association would buttress that observation, even in comparison with Seattle, known for such big-time outdoor companies as REI.

In 2006, the association found that the “active outdoor recreation economy” in Colorado contributed more than $10 billion to the state economy, including more than 107,000 jobs. The industry produced some $7.5 billion in annual retail sales and services, accounting for 4 percent of the state’s gross product and generating nearly $500 million in annual state tax revenue.

“I can’t emphasize enough the impact of the outdoor industry in bringing good-quality jobs to the Front Range,” said Avery Stonich, communications manager for the Outdoor Industry Association, which was founded here in 1989. She said the
quality of the employees is enhanced by the outdoor lifestyle available here, which in turn attracts more companies to base operations here.

“These are talented people who are passionate about the outdoors and want to turn that passion into a career,” she said. “Many times lower-level positions are being filled by people taking the job just to get a foothold in the industry.”

It is no giant secret what brings top-line skiing companies such as Dynafit and Scarpa and upscale clothing manufacturer Spyder Active Sports Inc. to establish a presence here. But along the Front Range, the proximity to high country, transportation and business support aren’t the only factors in attracting both high-quality companies and high-quality employees, as well, Stonich said.

The quantity and quality of the open lands near Front Range cities, especially in Boulder County, is attractive to outdoor athletes for everyday — sometimes lunchtime — training, she said. The better the labor pool, the better the companies it attracts.

At Rab, when CEO Matt Gower came alone from England to start up the U.S. marketing efforts he had no trouble filling out the staff, Killgore said.

“I don’t think he did any advertising, not even Craigslist,” she said. “He had worked with Nepture (Mountaineering in Boulder), and knew their buyer,” who was an initial hire).

“Another customer-service person (hired) was a buyer from Spyder. I came along, as I was doing PR in the industry, and another customer-service person came from the Access Fund,” Killgore said. “Everyone here has had a lot of experience in the industry, and we haven’t had to cast a very wide net.”

Apparently, switching brands is not uncommon in the outdoor industry, especially here where talented people who took jobs for the experience are looking to quickly move up.

When it comes to the big brands, Killgore said, there seems to be an imperative to at least have a satellite office in Colorado. In her former field of outdoor PR, she said, a Pearl Street address in Boulder is somewhat akin to a national lobbyist having a K Street address in Washington, D.C.

But it isn’t all about big brands coming in to show off their wares, which are manufactured offshore. Some of the more impressive small- to mid-size businesses actually make skis and snowboards here, and while they don’t have the impact that Head Ski once had in terms of employment, they have a big impact on moving the industry ahead in technology.

For instance, Donek, located east of Denver, has been making snowboards for 22 years and pioneered the use of computer numerical control in production. Drake Powderworks of Boulder and Ellison of Westminster also are moving ahead with progressive shapes and designs.

The Front Range also is home to a number of advocacy groups, Stonich said, including the Bikes Belong Coalition, the International Mountain Bicycling Association, Leave No Trace and the Access Fund, as well as outdoor publications including Skiing, Women’s Adventure, Climbing, Backpacker, Freeskier, Skiing Business, Transworld Business and SNEWS, the outdoor-industry trade publication.

The outdoor industry has begun to cast a wider net as well, attracting companies that make more peripheral equipment to those extending outdoor sports into fashion, such as Boulder’s Skirt Sports, which can bring a feminine side to a triathlon.

But perhaps no company has a more unique place in the outdoor industry than Backpacker’s Pantry of Gunbarrel, located almost a stone’s throw from the former home of Head Ski, which dominated the local outdoor industry in the ’70s and early ’80s. The manufacture of quality freeze-dried backpacking goods has found a unique place here, situated between outdoor products and the natural-foods industry.

“It was really coming home for us,” said owner Rodney Smith, who moved the family business here from Redding, California, in 1992. Much of his family moved from Colorado to California during the Dust Bowl — don’t feel too bad; they were related to Donald Wills Douglas of McDonnell Douglas Aircraft — but the homecoming was both a business and quality-of-life decision.

“In California, our workers comp (insurance) was going through the roof,” Smith said. “We started looking around and in the end we just wanted our family here.”

Backpacker’s Pantry is very much a family business, but also one that has resisted easy solutions, such as moving its manufacturing overseas. Today, the company employs about 45 people, and produces a product that is sought after by serious backcountry enthusiasts while still maintaining a price that is very competitive with even cut-rate retailers such as Walmart.

In that fashion, Backpacker’s Pantry may represent what actually fuels the outdoor industry.

“We’re a food company, and obviously being around such a center for the natural- and organic-food industry works for us,” Smith said, “but that Boulder name has really helped (us) get into REI stores across the nation.”

Even without outsourcing, he said, “we still eke out a pretty good living. It’s a matter of how you run your business. I can’t control quality if I manufacture in China.

“I think people who have the opportunity to run their business here think a lot about that.”

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