May 19, 2020
Fun conversation on episode 217 of the Outdoor Biz Podcast with long time JanSport president and master of fun every day Paul Delorey
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Show Notes
Let's start off with how you
got introduced to the outdoors.
Growing up in a big family, my mom and dad had eight
kids and it was an unusually small house. So being outside was a
big deal and family vacations were camping. If you wanted your own
room, you had to get a small tent. So as a kid my dad got me a pup
tent. When we'd go, I'd find a spot off by myself and pitch my tent
and have my own space.
What kind of activities did you
do?
You
know, kid camp stuff, fishing, and making pancakes on the Coleman
stove. That kind of thing, just exploring state parks. Growing up
in Wisconsin, there were some beautiful state parks that there to
this day.
How did you connect with Skip
Yowell and JanSport?
In
1977, I had gone back to school to finish a master's degree. When I
went back one of the things open at the time was the bookstore.
They were looking for a bookstore manager. So I took the job and
one of the benefits was free tuition. So in 1977, I'm going to a
college bookstore trade show in New York City. And I was really
familiar with the JanSport brand from my local outdoor store. I saw
they were on the list of vendors. So one of the first places I went
to was the JanSport booth. I told them who I was and they said,
well, we'll have somebody with you in a minute. And this guy comes
out and he's wearing a fringed buckskin jacket with a Bolo tie and
pressed white shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots.
He's
got long hair and a foo man choo mustache. He kind of stood out you
know? And it was
Skip
Yowell. I was
immediately impressed and, I looked at Skip and I really had a
feeling this is one of the reasons this brand is so cool. So we
started talking and they were basically there just to take a look
at the market and see if they wanted to start selling in it yet. At
the time there were other brands selling backpacks in the college
bookstore market. I told Skip, I said, man, I'll give you an order
right now. And he said, well, we're just not sure we’re gonna sell
in this market yet.
So,
you know, a few months went by and I called him up and I said, Hey
Skip, I don't know if you remember me. I met you in New York. He
said, yeah, yeah. I said, you know, I'm still interested. And he
said, well, we just don't have the capacity right now. He said, so
we're going to have to pass. So one thing led to another, I stayed
at the university for about two or three years. And in 1979, I met
this guy who was running a company up in Wisconsin that sold tee
shirts and sweatshirts to the colleges. We had kind of struck up a
relationship and he asked me if I'd come up and go to work for him
to start a division to sell colleges. You know, I was ready for a
change.
So I
went to work for this company called Downers. Kim Vander Heiden and
Dan Spalding owned it. In any case, I got up there and got started.
I told the guys that owned the business, I said, you know, we
really should be selling day packs in addition to T-shirts and
sweatshirts. So we ended up going over to China or someplace in the
orient and trying to source packs and basically looked at JanSport
day pack designs and tried to copy them.
In
1982 JanSport was owned by Sitka corporation, which owned
K2
skis and a bunch of
other outdoor businesses. And they had gone through a real bad ski
season. They were short on cash. So their bankers told them they
need to raise some money, so they put JanSport up for sale. And at
the time the guys that own Downers were starting to realize Downers
was a very difficult trade name to try to peddle. So JanSport had
come up for sale, they decided to buy it. And one of the first
assignments I had with that, they sent me out on a diligence team
to Seattle to study the business and see what was going
on.
The
first office I walked into was Skips. And I looked at him, I said,
Hey man. I said, do you remember me? And he scratches head sitting
here. And he says you look familiar. He says, but I'm really not
sure. I said I tried to buy backpacks from you in 1977 in New York
City, you wouldn't sell me. And I said, buddy, it looks like I'm
going to get all I want now Skip and I hit it off and just became
forever friends. And you know, all through the years we had a lot
of adventures all over the world and a lot of fun too.
This
was 1982. So at the end of 1986, the guys that bought JanSport had
gone through two corporate takeovers. In 1984, JanSport was bought
by a corporation called Bluebell. Then in 1986, Bluebell was bought
by VF
Corporation. So the
guys that originally owned the company stayed around a little while
but eventually decided they didn't want to be there anymore and
they made me president.
How many years did you end up
staying with JanSport?
A
little over 22 years and then they had me consult for them for a
couple of years as you know. So the thing for me, especially at
that time, Rick was the guy that had preceded me was really just a
business genius. He had a great mind for numbers and math was never
my strong suit. So, you know, I'm sitting in his office the first
day after he left and I thought, how am I going to do this? And you
know, we all use what we have in the toolbox. My toolbox included,
I just want to have fun. So you know, I just figured if I could
make the environment enjoyable and everybody has fun, you know,
good things would happen. And they did, they really
did.
JanSport went through some
really significant growth. Those were some pretty heady times. Was
the biggest challenge trying to make enough packs?
Well,
yeah, I mean, absolutely. You know, we expanded our sewing capacity
domestically for many years and built several plants in Washington.
But then as you know, the competitors started to go offshore to
Mexico or China. We had to follow suit as well, just to keep up
cost-wise. But it was an exciting time trying to keep up with
warehouse facilities and making sure we had enough space. The
JanSport business went from the like under 20 million to, by the
time I left was over 300 million in total.
I was working at A16 at the time
with Tim McGuire and was a huge JanSport fan. All the packs I
carried were JanSport packs. When you did the Everest program I had
all the T-shirts and stuff, It was great.
When
you mentioned A16, I met
Timmy in 1984 on the
JanSport dealer
climb. It was the
first time I tried anything like that. So, you know, you're a
little unsure of yourself. You've trained and you think you're
ready to go. So Skip told me, come on, let's go. We got me all the
gear that I would need to get up and get down. And so the first day
you go from Paradise up to Camp Muir and it's a long slog. You know
you get, get up there and get settled. So I get up to Camp Muir and
I look around and there are two young guys from A16, and they've
both carried a full case of Rainier to Camp Muir. I'm sitting
there, I'm saying, man, it'd be great to have a beer. So Skip walks
by and a kid says, you know, Mr. Yowell, would you like a beer and
Skips says sure. So he takes it, grabs a Caribiner, and snaps off
the top and drinks it.
And
I'm standing there and I'd say, Hey, you know, you guys, uh, would
you mind sharing another beer? The kid says, well, no, we, uh, we
really don't have enough for ourselves. No, we're not gonna. We're
not gonna do that. So many years later, uh, we had recruited Tim
McGuire to come work at JanSport. And so I’m sitting in my office
and, uh, he doesn't remember this, well, he does now. I'm looking
at him and I said, Hey man, I said, I know you. In 1984 up at Camp
Muir, you were from A16 and you wouldn't give me a beer. Well, I
had a picture of that climb up on my wall and so I pointed to him,
I said, there you are. And I sit there. There I am in the back row
and I'm really looking like I could have used that
beer.
Your mission now is to convert
the outdoor industry to totally sustainable fabrics and coatings
through your Polycore venture, how'd that come
about?
Another old JanSport connection from the time I was
there. I got a call a couple of years ago from a guy named
Arthur Chen who had done a lot of work for us back in the day. And
in addition to doing sourcing and manufacturing, Arthur was also a
material scientist. His expertise is he studied the solidification
process of polymers for over 40 years. So he had patented a process
to coat fabrics that are water-based as opposed to solvents. And
the first thing he talked about was the fact that it would make the
fabrics up to 500% more abrasion-resistant. So, immediately you
think about it in your world and JanSport. You know, we sold
millions of bags that little kids would drag on sidewalks and rub
holes in them. You think about warranty service, but the bigger
issue with it was it was a water-based PU as opposed to
solvent-based. And I like to explain it in the sense that, when you
used to paint and you opened a can of paint and it was
solvent-based, those fumes filled the house and you know, would
make you sick and that type of thing. But it changed and it all
became latex or water-based. So you didn't have the fumes escaping
into the environment.
So
you guys go to the trade shows, you have a booth there. Okay. I
didn't know about this until, uh, I was looking up your, your bio.
That's great.
Yeah,
we were at the last three outdoor retailers and it was a good start
and things were really rolling along. Then the virus hit and it
changed a lot of people's plans.
So have any of the brands
adopted your products?
They're starting to. We've come up with a couple of
other products through those conversations. You know you sit down
with people and they say, well could you do this? And one of the
things was some people want to just to reinforce certain areas. So
we came up with this process of turning the PU into a film that can
be heat sealed onto fabrics, into different stress spots. We call
that spot welding if you saw it on the website.
I love your fun everyday
philosophy, where did that come from?
When
I was a kid, my mother used to ask me if I wanted to grow up and be
a big man and go to work every day like my daddy. And, uh, I’d
always tell her, “Mom, I don't want to, I want to just be a little
boy and just play”. But the thing there, especially all of those
years at JanSport was, I mean it was a real company and it made a
lot of business, made a lot of profit. But one of the things for us
as a group, we had a lot of fun. If you think back to some of those
parties, the ‘Shake
n Bake’. I think back
to some of those times, Rick, and I don't know if you remember the
one we had in Salt Lake at the Delta Center? It was a thing where
they always say, it never rains in Salt Lake at that time, in the
summer. And so we got up there and we'd had a lineup of like three
or four bands and the opening act was John McCune, The Nitty Gritty Dirt
Band. So they had
played their sets and then The Fabulous Thunderbirds
were due to come up on stage and
the skies just opened up. And if you recall next to the Delta
center was a parking garage and people started rolling barrels of
beer into the parking garage. I went and asked
Jimmy Vaughn, I said,
Hey, you know, we found some power over there, would you consider
coming over and playing? And he says, no. He says, we're not doing
that, but John McCune was standing there and he says, hell, he
says, we'll play. So he came over with his band and played for
probably an hour, hour and a half. I don't know how many people we
had in that parking garage.
We
used to have them at a place called the Little
Waldorf Saloon there
in Reno. And the owner's name was Louis Chatel. And one of the
things that I always liked to do with those deals was become a
bartender and just stand behind the bar and serve people. Get to
know people. And so a lot of the times it was somebody you didn't
know and they'd be standing there at the bar and they'd order
something and tell you to hurry up or whatever. And somebody would
say, Hey, you know who that is? No, it's the bartender. They’d say,
no, it's the President of JanSport. And embarrass them a little
bit.
Tim McGuire wanted me to ask
you about your high school football career. Did you play high
school football?
I
did. As a matter of fact. I went to a pretty small high school, I
think it was about 175 kids in total. During my freshman year, I
was five foot one and 86 pounds. You know, it was a tradition in my
family that you play. I was definitely the runt of the litter. My
next oldest brother was six feet. My coach would say, you know,
you're not big but you're slow.
So
that first year the smallest cleats I could find were seven and a
half. And I think I wore about five and a half or six. So I stuffed
paper in the toes and you lace them up real tight. And I can tell
you there were several times that year that I got knocked right out
of my shoes, hold the tackling dummy. At the end of my freshman
year, I'm sitting on the bench, which was my normal spot at the
end. And the coach, you know, turns to me. We're winning like 48 to
nothing. Uh, the coach, he says Delorey, get in there and he says,
I want you to be mean. I want you to growl at somebody. So it ended
up I got in there, I start growling and we lost, 48 to 70. The next
play went right over the top of me and all I remember was the
bottom of cleats. My older brother told me, he said, you know, if
you're going to do this, you're going to have to get bigger and
stronger. So that summer I ate, ran, lifted weights. And I grew to
the height I am now, which is short at five, six, but I put on
almost 50 pounds of weight, now 135 going back my sophomore year, I
was still slow, but I thought I was a world-beater and my best
friend was about six, five and he was almost 300 pounds and he was
the right tackle. So I was the right guard. Anything I couldn't
handle, we used to call him gentle Ben, he would just lean on my
guy, knock him down, and tell him to stay down.
You're also involved with the
Skip Yowell Future Leadership Academy. What is your role
there?
The
big thing with that is, you know, just making sure that Skip's
memory stays alive. And so at the start of every class the past
couple of years at the leadership Academy, they asked me to come in
and give a talk to people about Skip. And you know, he was my
friend, but he was also probably one of the most unique people I
think I've ever known in my life. I mean, Skip had a mind like a
rusted trap. Once he knew your name, he never forgot it. Then if
he, if he did for a second, he had a lyric or used to say Hey
Slugger or something like that, then all of a sudden memory would
kick in.
He’d
get up and just give presentations to people and I sat there and I
think, how can he just be so calm and cool about this as he's doing
it? And a wide variety of groups, right? I mean it's like how does
he know what to say to these people? You know, he just did it off
the cuff. I watched him do it in groups of two or three as we'd go
around doing clinics and in shops. I saw him do it in settings
where he'd be in front of thousands of people, you know, so pretty
amazing guy. We stayed friends right up until the end. The year or
so before he died, we were out in St Peter with him and had a party
at the saloon, invited everybody in the town, all nine of them. And
I think seven of the nine showed up. The other two were mad at
somebody else in the town and so they didn't come. But you know,
just had a, a good time just hanging out together. But we did that
with him and Winnie, you know, all over the world.
I have another wildcard question
that came in from somebody else who wanted to know if you really
got rousted by security in a five-star hotel in Paris because they
thought you were a homeless guy sleeping in the
lobby.
Who
asked that? Do you sense that person's initials would be Jim
Thomsen? Jim and I also had a number of great adventures all over
the world. And, you know, some of them included late-night pub
crawling around certain cities and, you would not get much sleep.
So I can remember falling asleep in a chair. You know, they came
and told me that, uh, no sir, you cannot do this. You must go to
your room. And I was just waiting for Jim to come down to get ready
to leave for a flight, I think. So they, they rousted me. But the
deprivation of sleep was well-deserved by hanging with Jim
Thomsen.
What outdoor activities do you
participate in these days?
You
know, we're there paddling on the Lake and down here. I like to
think of the little area that we live in, As I tell people, it's
like a geriatric JanSport. A lot of my neighbors remind me a lot of
those people. And so we started playing a form of tennis that we
call funiss. Funniss is full contact tennis. And the object of the
game is to hit, the opponent on the opposite side of the net, as
hard as you can, physically with the ball, rocket shots each other.
We play five days a week, and usually, at the end of the season,
which would be around now, we have an annual banquet where we hand
out awards. There are usually six or eight guys that play through
the course of the winter, but there are usually 20 or 30 people
that show up to the banquet to see the awards and, watch us do an
exhibition match after we drink beer and eat pizza. Some of the
awards we always have most injured, you know, there's one of the
guys for the past few years was on Coumadin, so if he got hit, he
would bleed. So, you have most home runs for who hits them out of
the court, you know, you have a most improved player, those kinds
of things.
Do you have any suggestions or
advice for folks wanting to get in the outdoor biz or the adventure
biz?
Well,
the thing I would tell you, and you know this Rick, from being in
the industry, it's, probably one of the greatest places that you
can go to work because the fabric of the people involved in the
outdoor industry is everybody's cool. And you know, usually,
everybody will help everybody else out. And, those are the things
that, for me when I started it just impressed me, you know, and
it's an impression that has never gone away. I mean, there's that
core of those people that I worked with that I'm still friends
with. I've been retired now 19 years basically, you know, other
than these consulting jobs, and there's a whole group of them that,
you know, will be friends for life.
It'll
be five years now that Skip passed, and they had me come out and do
a eulogy type tribute, you know, for him. And I had not been back
to the show in those 14 years. But you know, you start walking
around and it's like, Oh my God, Paul and I say, yeah, I'm what's
left of him. You know, you, you just walk around and all of a
sudden like no time has passed, right. Because you're seeing all
these people that you hung out with and those events and had a lot
of fun. And it's the same thing, you know, doing this
Polycore thing. There was a little pause there for a couple of
years and then, you know, you come back, you're walking the show or
you're in a booth, people say, Oh my God, it’s Paul
Delorey.
What's your favorite outdoor
gear purchase under a hundred dollars?
I
have two, both of them surprisingly enough given my history, have
to do with drinking. One is my LifeStraw.
You know, you think about when you're outdoors and you need
something to drink, more than anything, you need good water. So
that is a great tool. That, and then the other is just a
good Yeti mug.
Which, you know, in the morning you can have a cup of coffee or tea
and then at night you can have a martini in it and the ice doesn't
melt for days.
If you could have a huge banner
at the entrance to or what would it say?
Well,
I would tell you, Rick, it would be a picture of the planet and it
would say over the top, “We Gotta Fix This”. And for so many years a lot of people ignore the
signs. I've told a lot of people that I think there's truly a
connection between, you know, what's going on with things like this
virus and a change in the climate. I mean, you watch species are
starting to migrate differently and you know, germs are morphing.
It's like, guys, we gotta do something about this. And we all have
a part a, so, you know, the sooner the better and the more the
better. So yeah, we got, we gotta make some changes. I think one of
the things, especially these last couple of years going back to OR,
that I find encouraging, I see all these new young companies, they
get it. And you know, are consumer-focused and are gonna deliver on
that promise. Making a product that's more sustainable, doing it
right. Start to finish. Those are the companies that, if we make it
as a world are going to be the ones that are gonna lead the
way.
As we wrap up here, is there
anything else you'd like to say to our listeners?
Get
outside and enjoy it. And support companies that reflect your, your
personality, and your causes. And right now, support your local
businesses. Cause there's a lot of 'em that are struggling. We have
a couple of them here, there's a favorite breakfast spot
called Mrs. Mac's and a couple of the guys in the neighborhood and me, we
have a little band. So we go down there every Wednesday morning and
play for an hour in the parking lot for breakfast and get the
waitresses and the people coming by for pickups singing and you
know, just try to make sure they're still going after this is all
over.
If people want to find you,
what's the best way to reach out?
I’ve
got a website which is fun-every-day-dot-org. funeveryday.org It's got all my information on it. And you can also
reach me at Paul D at poly core dot net. pauld@polycore.net