Andrew Weaver

Before the pandemic hit, summer 2020 was supposed to mark the grand opening of REI's new eight-acre headquarters in Bellevue, Washington. The move was long awaited and eagerly hyped. Plans for the new location, which included a 380,000-square-foot office building and trendy ...read more

Pocket Outdoor Media, the Boulder-based group that acquired SNEWS and several other active lifestyle publications this year, has become the latest company to sign the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge, joining Marmot, Burton, Eddie Bauer, Moosejaw, and dozens of others committed to ...read more

One of the largest conservation bills drafted in recent memory was signed into law today, ending a months-long process that began in June, when the measure was first approved by the U.S. Senate. The Great American Outdoors Act guarantees mandatory, permanent financing of the Land ...read more

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced a significant overhaul to one of the country's bedrock environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act, a move that led to outcry among conservation groups across the nation. "The new rules reduce transparency, ...read more

Love 'em or hate 'em, virtual gatherings have likely been on your mind a lot this season. From experimental, techie affairs like the Thin Air Show to smaller, more intimate efforts at connection during the pandemic, workable replacements for in-person events have cropped up ...read more

The Active Living Group—a family of publications recently acquired by Pocket Outdoor Media in Boulder, Colorado—has gone green. The group announced last week that it has partnered with Cooler, a technology company that enables businesses to calculate and neutralize the climate ...read more

Yesterday evening, on the second night of the all-virtual trade show OR Online, the organizers of Outdoor Retailer presented the annual Inspiration Awards to industry leaders in six categories: individual, manufacturer, retailer, nonprofit organization, youth, and a new category ...read more

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass The Great American Outdoors Act today, bringing the landmark conservation bill one step close to becoming law. The bill, which passed the Senate last month, guarantees mandatory, permanent financing of the Land and Water ...read more

The pandemic will once again test the industry's embrace of virtual gatherings this week as Outdoor Retailer takes place online for the first time in the trade show's history. After cancelling the 2020 Summer Market in April due to the pandemic, show organizers got to work on a ...read more

If you've paid attention to the news in outdoor retail this week, you might be scratching your head a little. REI made waves with a recent announcement that 400 of the company's retail employees would lose their jobs, effective July 15. Mountain Equipment Co-op made a similar ...read more

Here's something to wrap your head around. Despite the fact that the modern hiking backpack was introduced by Kelty in 1952, almost seven decades ago, a dedicated pack line for plus-size hikers has never existed in the outdoor industry. Countless innovations are made each season ...read more

In an email sent to REI staff members last week, CEO Eric Artz reportedly confirmed plans to lay off 400 retail employees by Wednesday, cutting the company's 13,000-person customer-facing workforce by roughly 3 percent. Though SNEWS was unable to obtain a copy of the email, ...read more

Retailers across the nation are reopening, people are out shopping again, and everyone is wondering just how safe they are, say, sitting down to try on a pair of shoes or getting fitted for a pack. Throughout the outdoor industry, most (if not all) major brands have poured ...read more

Grassroots Outdoor Alliance dropped some big news this week. The specialty retailer advocacy group added 10 new member companies to its nationwide roster in a single stroke, one of the biggest spikes since the organization's founding in 1994. According to the association's ...read more

When it comes to promoting DEI in the workplace, companies now, more than ever, are hungry for guidance. That was the idea that precipitated the release of Camber Outdoors' newest DEI tool, the Workplace Anti-Racism Action Agenda. Published last month, the agenda represents the ...read more

In matters of social activism at a corporate level, outdoor companies are often some of the first to throw their hats into the ring. Our industry has a long history of putting people before profits, and that often translates into downright enviable employee perks. Patagonia ...read more

It's nine o'clock on a Monday morning. Tom Wolfe sits down to start his week. He checks his email, then his Google AdWords account. He fires off a few text messages to clients, asking how they're doing. Still fine. Nothing new. He gets ready for a Zoom call. This might sound ...read more

Now that Pride month has come to a close, brands across the industry will once again begin taking down their rainbow logos, packing them away until next summer. There's no question we've come a long way in our celebration and amplification of LGBTQIA+ people in the outdoor space ...read more

A young woman injured in a 2017 accident involving an ENO hammock has sued the brand's parent company, Eagles Nest Outfitters, for unspecified damages to be determined at trial. Erin Field, 23, was paralyzed from the neck down after a brick chimney—to which an ENO hammock had ...read more

Staying safe while traveling is of primary importance for many outdoor participants right now. As summer kicks off, quarantine restrictions ease, and people across the country start planning trips, adherence to a sensible set of safety measures will be critical for containing the ...read more

There's a whole lot nobody wants to touch right now for fear of getting sick. For most people, tester pairs of sunglasses—transferred from face to face in public retail spaces—are likely near the top of the list. To solve this problem, Bollé has rolled out a new digital solution ...read more

On June 17, six national civil rights groups—the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press, and Common Sense—announced a boycott, #StopHateForProfit, that urged companies to pull advertising from Facebook for the month of July in response to ...read more

Merrell's new head of marketing, Janice Tennant, could hardly be more perfect for the role she stepped into just last week. Combining a lifelong love of the outdoors with more than 18 years of marketing leadership experience—including her most recent role as CMO of Cat ...read more

In an extraordinary display of bipartisan agreement, the U.S. Senate voted Wednesday to pass the Great American Outdoors Act, a bill that guarantees mandatory, permanent financing for the Land and Water Conservation Fund at $900 million a year and sets aside $1.9 billion annually ...read more

A new partnership between Google and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Sweden might just help the fashion industry become less dirty by harnessing the power of data and machine learning. According to Google, the global fashion industry accounts for a whopping 20 percent of ...read more

As the pandemic progresses, virtual events seem to be getting better and better. With media presentations, line showings, and other key aspects of the seasonal buying cycle moving online, industry players are adapting quickly. Communication is getting slicker as processes are ...read more

The show must go on—somehow.  More than two months after Outdoor Retailer officially cancelled its 2020 Summer Market due to the coronavirus, a digital substitute has been announced: Outdoor Retailer Online, which will run July 21-23 to help brands and reps "reach retailers, ...read more

The idea for The Cleveland Outpost was hatched less than a year ago. Josh Scott, an outdoor industry professional with experience in specialty retail, was on vacation with his partner Hannah Kelling, an outdoor educator and camp counselor, in South Carolina. Sitting on the porch ...read more

The spring buying process is sure to be an interesting one this year, as retailers affected by the pandemic assess how much, if any, new product they can take on, and brands try to find ways to get their new offerings in front of buyers without the help of traditional trade ...read more

The sales numbers coming out of the pandemic thus far paint a picture of unpredictable, if short-lived, demand. In the first few weeks, dehydrated meals—the kind backpackers carry to lighten their loads—seemed to be worth their weight in gold. Companies like Mountain House, ...read more

In honor of World Oceans Day on June 8, Colorado-based Zeal Optics is throwing down an admirable challenge to its customers. For every pair of sunglasses, goggles, or lenses sold from June 8 through the end of the month, the company will yank five pounds of harmful plastic waste ...read more

The Sierra Club's newly elected president, Ramón Cruz, has spent his entire professional life fighting for sustainability, climate advocacy, and responsible urban planning around the world. A graduate of American University and Princeton, he has worked as a senior policy analyst ...read more

Flowfold, a Maine-based maker of technical wallets, bags, and other outdoor gear, earned itself a spot in the headlines this March when it pivoted its entire operation to focus on building face shields for hospital workers. With astonishing speed, the company shut down production ...read more

One way to trace the progression of the pandemic is to look at the consumer demand for masks. In the beginning, there were devastating shortages and disturbing stories of profiteers and stockpilers. Then came a period of tenuous equilibrium, when the use of homemade face ...read more

If you're a small business owner struggling to get your message out to customers right now, take note. The creative agency CMD, based in Portland, has instituted a new program called Open For Business that pairs professional content makers—videographers, producers, animators, ...read more

In late March, just two weeks after the San Francisco PR agency JAM Collective instituted a remote work policy to protect against the spread of the novel coronavirus, a message circulated from the team. "We're taking things virtual with our new series #JAMSessions!" it read. ...read more

Gary Lenett understands the power of consensus. In 2014, when he founded the performance denim company DUER, he did it with funds raised through Kickstarter, a proof-first method that relies not on the confidence of big investors or market predictions, but on the voices of real ...read more

After months of closures that spelled disaster for some and extreme hardship for many others, retailers both small and large have started reopening across the nation as states lift the stay-at-home mandates that have kept them closed. The results so far, according to multiple ...read more

Walmart made big news in the outdoor industry three years ago when it snapped up the cult-favorite specialty gear chain Moosejaw for $51 million. Back then, speculation abounded as to what the world's largest retailer (largest at the time; Amazon nabbed the title last spring) ...read more

In the late 1980s, when Bob Collins founded the original Appalachian Outfitters in a strip mall in Canton, Ohio, specialty gear shops in the midwest were few and far between. A salesman for the chemical industry, Collins knew outdoor equipment only from his own pursuits: ...read more

Life and business have changed dramatically for everyone in the last few months. Like reps, retailers, and others on the for-profit side of the outdoor industry, those working in the nonprofit sector have faced new challenges almost daily since the pandemic began. This week, ...read more

"The very first concept to understand is that this all comes down to a brewing war between Google and Amazon." That's how Mike Massey, founder of the ecommerce platform Locally, described the recent announcement from Google that the tech giant will start listing products from ...read more

It might seem that now, in the middle of a global crisis forcing layoffs and closures across the outdoor industry, issues unrelated to the pandemic, like DEI, are in danger of being overshadowed in the national conversation. "Fortunately, that hasn't happened," said Teresa ...read more

In the midst of the pandemic, nothing is as simple as we might hope. While many of us are looking forward to the day America's national parks resume operations, the situation is more complicated than just throwing open the gates and letting people in. "Just because you read that ...read more

In recent weeks, we've seen a lot of suffering among retailers, as news of closures, furloughs, and layoffs rolls in. We've also seen the best in people—customers banding together to support independent shops, vendors implementing programs to keep their dealers afloat, and brands ...read more

When it comes to ecommerce, few factors influence buying decisions as powerfully as reviews. Studies have shown that 95 percent of consumers read online testimonials before making final purchases. Traditionally, those reviews have existed in different channels—consumer reviews in ...read more

The Reveal Global Media Conference wrapped up the first day of its two-day program this afternoon, showcasing new products from brands like Cotopaxi, Hoka One One, and Mountain Hardwear in seven hours of Zoom presentations curated for more than 300 registered journalists. Hosted ...read more

We've all been getting a lot of bleak news lately. Sometimes, you just need a little break. That was the idea that led Koby Crooks, a sales rep at The Alpine Cowboy in Austin, Texas, and puzzle aficionado to create an outdoor activity book for staff of the retail stores he works ...read more