Glacier Outdoor, riding sales increase, expands facility

Glacier Outdoor, a Reno-based cold-weather glove and apparel manufacturer, is posting sales 25 percent higher than last year despite tight-fisted consumers, prompting the company to triple its warehouse space.

The company, founded as Glacier Glove in 1985 by fisherman Dick Swan, was purchased in 2007 by Northstar Investors, headed by Chris Howard and Stuart Feigin.

Howard says he saw the small company as a platform to launch other high-quality outdoors products, and since buying the company and rebranding it, Glacier has added fishing backpacks and other sporting apparel to its product line.

"We bought it as a platform company and that means you have to come up with new products," Howard says. "We haven't gone as far down that road as I would have liked mostly because the economy has been beating us up but nevertheless we have grown substantially and take a certain amount of pride that we are still alive."

Design for new products, such as fly fishing backpacks and cold-weather gear, are designed and tested in-house by company employees, who are passionate outdoorsmen. Manufacturing of the company's products is contracted offshore.

Cold-weather fishing gloves still are Glacier's best seller, accounting for about 55 to 60 percent of total sales. However, as its new product lines become more widely recognized, and it expands its network of distribution channels, Glacier Outdoor expects sales of new products to outstrip glove sales.

The Glacier Outdoor line can be found nationwide in outdoors retailers such as Sportsman's Warehouse, Scheels, Cabelas, Bass Pro Shops and L.L. Bean, as well as select online retailers and independent stores, such as Reno Fly Shop. The company's biggest markets are the Pacific Northwest and the South, says Managing Director Coby Rowe.

Glacier will share its new warehouse space with ModaPet, another Northstar company that makes molded plastic pet products, such as designer food and drinking bowls. The two companies, which employ about 15 people, will save money by sharing logistics, space and employees at a 9,862-square-foot facility at 7525 Colbert Lane.

"We tend to run lean and I think that is why we are still around," Rowe says.

Glacier Outdoor intends to boost its revenues through increased international presence in Canada and Europe, as well as broaden its reach domestically by tapping new markets for its signature cold-weather gloves.

"These gloves that Dick Swan invented, there are so many uses, from fueling an airplane when it's cold outside to commercial maritime," Rowe says. "There are so many channels we haven't pursued yet."

Sales have climbed by $500,000 this year, in part because many large outdoors retailers who sought to copy the company's products have returned as customers.

The headaches associated with overseas production and importation negated any profit margin, Rowe says.

"Now that they have gone out and done it, and they know what it takes to make it, import it, and all the hassles, we are seeing some shift in business from these big guys coming back," he says. "There is so much that goes into making a glove, and a lot of these guys realize there is value in going with us and with the brand."

Next up for Glacier Outdoor: A switch from sewn and glued products, such as its gloves and backpacks, to injection-molded designs that have fewer failure points.

"Glued and sewn products are hard to make," says Howard. "They require a lot of labor, and you get (varying) quality. Injection-molded products are easy to make. You make the mold and just stamp them out.

"Within the next few years, Glacier will be inventing new products that are injection-molded. We have the resources to do that and the factories; all we have to do now is be inventive, creative and entrepreneurial."

The stagnant economy of the past few years has brought additional challenges to Glacier Outdoor as well.

Rather than buy large quantities of products, many retail distributors are buying products as needed, Howard says, which creates large inventory backups at Glacier's small warehouse. Companies also are slow-paying their invoices.

"They are using us as their warehouse and their bank, and that is expensive," Howard says. "We are stuck with either being stocked out, backordered, or having huge investments in inventory."