Rec N’ Effects
A surging Kootenay-wide economic development effort to build outdoor gear right here aims to reap what’s soldered, sold, and sewn. Andrew Findlay reports.
They shoot, they KORE — KORE’s 2024 Rec-Tech Summit in Kimberley included guest speakers David Harley, founder of Valhalla Pure Outfitters, with over $50 million in annual sales, former U.S. Olympic Committee member Jenna Celmer, CEO of the Basecamp Outdoor hub, and North45 owner/marketing pro Ricky Lee Jones, who took his company from $50K in annual sales to $1.5 million in just 12 months. — Photos Courtesy KORE
In 2019, longtime friends Matt Mosteller and Kevin Pennock got together for some back-of-the-napkin scheming on small town economic development. Specifically, the duo wanted to do something to leverage the Kootenays’ natural and outdoor adventure assets and promote the region as a burgeoning hub for outdoor gear designers and makers, or “rec-tech” as it’s known. KORE — Kootenay Outdoor Recreation Enterprise — was born in that meeting, and it’s been on a tear ever since.
“We’ve gone from maybe a dozen brands to more than 70 KORE members,” says Pennock over the phone from his home office in Kimberley. Pennock is KORE’s executive director.
He and his co-conspirator Mosteller are a pair of creative powerhouses who know how to get things done. Spirited and sociable, American-born Mosteller juggles many roles, including as a C-suite executive as Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies. He’s also a freelance writer, blogger, and speaker who runs custom outdoor wellness retreats for celebrities. Pennock, a driven and focused creative, is a renowned filmmaker and producer, founded the popular Ride Guide TV series, and managed nordic events for the 1988 Calgary Olympics among many other projects.
Inspiration for KORE came in part from other outdoor recreation hubs that have blazed trails in the rec-tech sector. For example, the Outdoor Gear Builders of Western North Carolina (OGB), launched in 2013, is based in the artsy, adventurous, and craft beer-loving city of Asheville, North Carolina, a city sadly devastated this fall by Hurricane Helene flooding. OGB now boasts more than eighty brands, including Fox Suspension, Rockgeist, Kitsbow, and Industry Nine. Member businesses collectively employ 1,100 people, spend $8.3 million US annually on locally sourced materials, and are major contributors to North Carolina’s $28 billion US outdoor recreation industry.
Though Western North Carolina and the Kootenays are on opposite sides of the continent, they share similar economic narratives with roots in heavy industry. In the case of North Carolina, timber and textile manufacturers once dominated, as well as chemical giants like DuPont: once a major employer and taxpayer that closed a massive plant in the region in 2002, laying off 1,500 people. In Kimberley, the home base for KORE, Teck shut its Sullivan Mine in 2001 after a century of production.
“The closure left behind a vacuum, but also a powerful opportunity to reimagine small town Kootenay economies and to make the connection between outdoor recreation and the outdoor gear sector,” Pennock says.
Outdoor recreation is a substantial economic driver in B.C. A 2020 study by University of Saskatchewan economist Patrick Lloyd-Smith valued the annual economic benefits of outdoor recreation in the province at $16 billion. However, the link between outdoor recreation and B.C.’s thriving outdoor gear sector has, up until recently, flown under the radar. Gear designers and makers want to live where access to the outdoors is easy and plentiful. Asheville, North Carolina proves the point, as does Salt Lake City, Utah, which is home to Black Diamond Equipment, Cotopaxi, Gregory Mountain Products, and Kühl, among many other well-known outdoor brands.
That’s why creating a critical mass of outdoor entrepreneurs, and supporting their growth and collaboration, are key focuses at KORE. One of the organization’s biggest successes so far is the annual Rec-Tech Summit in Kimberley, a connector event that brings entrepreneurs and people in the economic development sector together in the same room. In the fall of 2022, at the inaugural summit, Dan Durston of Golden-based Durston Gear met engineer Cam Shute, the former head of product design for the now defunct company Genuine Guide Gear, or G3.
The two geeked out on gear and entrepreneurship. This meeting quickly accelerated to a collaboration and the launch this past spring of the Durston Gear Iceline Pole, a three-piece trekking stick co-designed with Shute that weighs in at a feather-light 135 grams.
The Economic Trust of the Southern Interior (ETSI-BC) manages a $50 million economic development endowment and was an important early supporter of KORE. So far, ETSI-BC has funded the organization to the tune of $212,000.
“We recognized that [KORE] was a unique and ambitious emerging industry cluster that had some passionate and capable leadership to bring companies in the rec tech sector together and help them succeed,” says Laurel Douglas, CEO of ETSI-BC, about their decision to help fund KORE.
Recently the provincial government awarded KORE a $448,000 grant through the Rural Economic Diversification and Infrastructure Program (REDIP). This was the second year of funding under the REDIP program, and KORE was one of 10 Kootenay organizations to receive a grant.
Matt Mosteller, KORE’s co-founder and board chair, called the support “massive.” Pennock says the funding will allow KORE to continue growing and expanding its efforts over the next two years.
Currently, the roster of KORE members includes previously existing and established brands like Durston Gear, who make ultralight packs, tents, and more, and Ambler, who create hats, toques, and felt slippers. Other members are fledgling upstarts, like Fernie’s Ghostrider Equipment, which manufactures bike-specific bear spray holders.
Waste Deep Ski Company is another relative newcomer to the outdoor gear business. The boutique Fernie-based startup produces handmade skis and poles using a mix of bamboo and composite materials. Co-founder Doug Fisher is a 68-year-old retired management consultant who splits his time between Fernie and Toronto. He says he got bored with retirement and “wanted to have another impact.”
“I saw a hole in the ski market and thought we should be using recycled and natural stuff,” Fisher says.
The small company has already released a bamboo pole and plans to launch a bamboo ski this year. Fisher explains that, like any pioneering pursuit, it’s been tough sledding but that KORE has been instrumental in fostering important connections with other entrepreneurs in the outdoor gear space.
“The opportunity to meet fellow manufacturers has been wonderful,” Fisher says. “I’ve generated sales through exposure at KORE events and have also found a young product rep to take on sales for our firm through KORE.”
KORE’s achievements and successes haven’t gone unnoticed, and have inspired another B.C. community to take a closer look at their own outdoor economies. Following KORE’s first Rec-Tech summit two years ago, attendees from Squamish returned to the coast with a plan to launch SOARE (Sea to Sky Outdoor Adventure Recreation Enterprise).
JoJo Das, executive director of SOARE, says there were almost four hundred companies in the Sea to Sky region creating and innovating in the outdoor gear space but “with no central organization connecting them together.”
“KORE played a pivotal role in the ideation process of SOARE. Seeing KORE get off the ground helped in validating our own thoughts and hopes for our own outdoor rec-tech network,” says Das.
With solid funding in place, KORE hosted their Rec-Tech Summit version 3.0 this fall, and Pennock returned to the Banff Centre Mountain Film Festival in November with a marketplace highlighting dozens of Kootenay brands.
The organization is building trails that fork in new and creative directions. KORE board member and Ambler owner Christian Rawles is heading up the KORE Outdoors podcast, while a monthly virtual speakers series features outdoor experts and insiders sharing their knowledge, experiences, and challenges. On the geographic branding side of the equation, KORE introduced the Kootenay Approved campaign aimed at harnessing the Kootenays’ lifestyle appeal and how it informs and relates to the outdoor gear sector. At the same time, a new digital marketplace is supporting direct-to-consumer sales for KORE brands.
In May 2023, KORE piloted Re-Hub, a mobile gear repair program, at Revelstoke Re-Fest. Pennock explains that, moving forward, KORE plans to hire two tailors to grow this program as a traveling pop-up to encourage a re-use, repair, repurpose, and resell ethic in the Kootenays' outdoor gear world.
“From my perspective, KORE has basically put the small manufacturers of recreational gear from the Southern Interior of B.C. on the map,” says ETSI-BC’s Laurel Douglas. “Getting them included in the Banff Mountain Festival was a big deal. They have helped foster a lot of new collaboration, including facilitating the re-shoring of some manufacturing from China back to Canada. And they’re contributing to the circular economy with their repair labs.”
More than five years ago, when Mosteller and Pennock planted the seeds for KORE, they were motivated and inspired by interesting and locally-made gear, a taste for adventure, and a fondness for getting outside. But the pair were also thinking about the bigger picture: namely about how the outdoor gear sector can play a small but crucial, value-added role in diversifying the economies of small-town B.C., where once big industry and raw resource extraction dominated.
“We want to support outdoor gear entrepreneurs and attract people with talent and ideas to the Kootenays,” Pennock explains. “This is all a part of a nexus of opportunity that we’re creating.
~ Andrew Findlay
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