What You Buy Is Who You Are

The bearded guys in muted-plaid shirts and the lean women with low-maintenance hair may look like they’re on vacation, but they’ve come for serious business: the Outdoor Retailer show, which this month drew 29,000 attendees to Salt Lake City. There, deals get done for mosquito-resistant shirts and night-vision scopes, along with every imaginable form of hiking shoe, water bottle, tent, kayak, lantern and backpack, as well as the materials to make them.

Although the National Park Service is celebrating its centennial Thursday, the U.S. outdoor industry is a relatively new business -- about as old as personal computers, with similar anti-establishment roots. “Most of our parents wondered why we couldn’t get real jobs,” says Steve Barker, who in 1975 founded travel outfitter Eagle Creek and in 2007 sold it VF Corp. The industry’s pioneers were outdoor enthusiasts like Barker. They developed the specialized products they wanted to use themselves, including gear suited for the American West rather than European terrain. They taught customers how to rock climb and cross-country ski and even how to get passports for “adventure travel.”