Marmot

Eric Reynolds and Dave Huntley found a way to avoid classes at U.C. Santa Cruz for a couple of months. When they got home, they founded the Marmot Club, a social club that combined mountain climbing with an oddball spirit of community and inclusion. To be a member, you had to bag a peak with another Marmot. Once in, you were president. (The first rule of the Marmot Club was everyone is president.)

Eric and Dave began making their own parkas and sleeping bags in their dorm room and soon launched Marmot Mountain Works. They were scrappy. They moved the company to Durango and into an empty dry goods store. They got Clint Eastwood to wear one of their jackets in an action film. They opened stores, added more products into the mix, and then moved the whole thing back to California.