People

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

To honor the 155th celebration of Juneteenth, we wanted to take a moment to honor some of the amazing people working to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion within our industry. As recent events have taught us, we have a long way to go before the industry—and society at ...read more

In this edition of Straight Talk, Editor-in-Chief Kristin Hostetter sits down with Teresa Baker, co-founder of the Outdoor CEO Diversity Pledge to discuss how recent events have created an overwhelming surge in interest in the pledge. Here are some soundbites from Baker:  We do ...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

Outdoor Industry Association will have four fresh faces at its board meeting on June 22.  Trina Fornerette-Ballard, Brand manager at Waypoint Outdoor “I’m solutions driven with a willingness to have tough conversations to look for resolve.” Alison Hill, CEO at LifeStraw “As a ...read more

Patagonia announced the departure of its CEO, Rose Marcario, who has served as the company's chief executive officer since 2008. "Circumstances around the pandemic created a natural inflection point for reimagining our business and Rose and the Board felt it made sense for those ...read more

In 1992, I was hired as the first black independent sales representative for The North Face (TNF). Back then, TNF was privately owned and headquartered in Berkeley, California. On the way home from my very first sales meeting, I happened to bump into the company president, Bill ...read more

Backcountry announced leadership changes today. Melanie Cox will serve as CEO, replacing Jonathan Nielsen, and Sarah Crockett will serve in the newly created role of chief marketing officer. Cox comes to Backcountry from fast fashion brand rue21 where she was interim CEO. Cox ...read more

When he was a homeless teen living in San Diego, Ryan Hudson crossed paths with Outdoor Outreach, a nonprofit that introduces underserved kids to the outdoors, and it changed the trajectory of his life. He went on to compete in The North Face Masters of Snowboarding and the ...read more

Baltimore-born artist Dunston trained in scientific and preparatory medicine illustration in college. But when the Denver resident discovered en plein air painting—the full-on French Impressionist kind—it was an epiphany. “I didn’t know it was a thing people ...read more

“Before 2016, I’d never put the two words ‘outdoor’ and ‘industry’ together,” says documentary filmmaker Faith Briggs. The Brooklyn, New York, native worked for the Discovery Channel after graduating from Yale. But while on a shoot with the National Park Service in 2016, ...read more

Kicking off our Straight Talk series of laid-back, free-wheeling conversations with outdoor industry leaders, SNEWS Editor-in-Chief Kristin Hostetter connects via video with Eric Henderson, founder of Meteorite PR, which represents brands like Salewa, Dynafit, Sweet Protection, ...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

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

The outdoor industry makes way too much stuff. That has ramifications all down the line. There is a lot of product in the marketplace that retailers don't buy from vendors, and that customers wouldn’t miss if they never saw it. I would like to see lines shrink overall and focus ...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

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

Five years ago, this question may have sounded crazy. But with the fast pace of cannabis legalization across the country, and with retailers adding coffee and microbrews to their shops, the idea of an in-store dispensary may not be so far-fetched. This question popped into our ...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 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

Industry legend, Malcolm Daly, is home recovering from the stroke he suffered on April 20, 2020. Malcolm was helicoptered to a Boise, Idaho, hospital for emergency surgery after his wife, Karen found him unresponsive in his bed following a ride on his e-bike. Doctors ...read more

For the past few seasons, I heard industry talk about what the difference is between an “Outdoors-person” vs an “Outside-person.” An Outdoors-person is whom we as an industry have catered to for generations. Outdoors-people hike and ski and climb and ride bikes. They paddle ...read more

As the coronavirus crisis continues to paint a bleak picture for small businesses across the country, outdoor brands are stepping up one by one to help. The latest company to join the relief effort: Mountain Hardwear, which implemented a program this week to support authorized ...read more

The pain of the pandemic has rippled through just about every workplace in the outdoor industry over the past few months, and those of independent sales reps are no exception. As the main points of contact between outdoor companies and the stores that carry their products, reps ...read more