Remembering Mark Satkiewicz

Last week, our industry lost another leader far too soon when Mark Satkiewicz, former OIA board member and former executive for Smartwool, TOMS shoes and Nike, died of a cardiac incident while riding his bike in his hometown of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Most recently, Mark had co-founded and run the SBT GRVL race, which quickly became one of Colorado’s most popular gravel bike events. Perhaps best-known as the organizer of the annual Smartwool bike ride from Steamboat to Outdoor Retailer, Mark left his mark on the blacktop and the boardroom. A member of the Outdoor Industry Association board of directors from 2013–2017, Mark also had a reputation as a champion of inclusion and collaboration.

We reached out to Mark’s close counterparts on the board and throughout the industry for their personal reflections.

“Mark played a big role in the current focus of OIA and specifically the creativity and idea that became the industry’s call to action through “Together we are a Force.” He deeply believed in the power of working together and building great teams whether at individual brands or across the industry as a whole. He was also at the front pulling along the power of the collective. I am also deeply grateful for the notes of support he sent me during the difficult days of the trade show turmoil. I kept them all.” —Amy Roberts, former Executive Director, OIA; Senior Director of Communications and Corporate Responsibility, The North Face

“I considered Mark one of my mentors….always available to listen and offer perspective. I joined the OIA board around the same time as Mark and attempted to emulate how he showed up in the years that followed. He was a great brand builder, industry leader and community enthusiast. In honor of Mark, I am hoping we can all ride our bikes from Steamboat to Denver next Summer.” —Nora Stowell, OIA Board Chair, W.L. Gore

“Mark loved the outdoor industry and was passionate advocate as part of the Executive Committee on the OIA Board. It was a true to pleasure to work with him during his many contributions. He was also tremendously dedicated to his family explaining to Amy and I his decision to leave Smartwool and his role on the OIA Board to be able to provide an important opportunity for his family in California. He will be dearly missed.” —Gordon Seabury, CEO, Toad&Co; past OIA Board Chair

“Mark always provided balance and a level head, and was a pleasure to know and serve on the board with. He always gave sound counsel and was a thoughtful, terrific human. He will be missed by all who had the good fortune of knowing him.” —Jen Mull Neuhaus, Former CEO, Backwoods; Outdoor Foundation Board member; past OIA Board member

“It deeply saddens all of us that Mark’s life was cut so short. He was bigger than life as a business partner, an athlete and a committed activists for all that matters. During his time with us, Mark personified the phrase “a life well lived”. He embodied all that we aspired to be as human beings. Godspeed Mark Satkiewicz.” —Will Manzer, Former CEO, Eastern Mountain Sports; Former OIA Board Chair

“Mark was one of the people I call ‘unintentional mentors.’ As a small business owner, it was invaluable for me to glean little pearls of wisdom from him during OIA board meetings, after-meeting dinners, and hallway conversations. I remember asking him for advice in structuring management reviews, and he sent me the template he had developed at Smartwool.

More importantly, his kind and generous nature, his affability, and his passion for the outdoors was an inspiration to myself, as I am sure it was for a thousand other people. The world was and will continue to be better because he was in it, and will be greatly diminished by his absence. —Darren Bush, Owner, Rutabega Paddlesports; former OIA Board member

“This is such sad news. I didn’t know Mark well, as I met him during my time on the OIA Board. As a member of the board and a leader among the outdoor industry, I found Mark to be open- minded, innovative and a creative thinker. He was always pushing the elements of the industry for the future and spearheading ways to bring more participants and diversity to the incredible activities of the outdoors. He will be missed and leaves us to continue the journey.” —John Lacy, CEO, Burton, former OIA Board member 

Donations can be made to the Mark Satkiewicz Memorial Fund, which will provide gear and resources to Steamboat Springs youth who may not otherwise be able to participate.

You can read obituaries about Mark at Bicycling.com, SGB Online and SNEWS.

Increase in Outdoor Activities due to COVID-19

Are your local parks and trails far busier than usual? Is it harder to find a trailhead parking spot — not to mention new bikes, hiking boots and camping gear? It’s not your imagination. New data shows COVID-related impacts to participation in April, May and June of 2020. Americans have flocked to outdoor recreation amid COVID restrictions, as the data from OIA indicates.

  • Americans took up new activities in significant numbers in April, May and June of 2020. Among the biggest gainers were running, cycling and hiking.
  • Walking, running and hiking were widely considered the safest activities in which to participate.
  • Among the five activity segments measured (team, fitness, outdoor, individual and racquet) outdoor saw the lowest impact due to COVID shutdowns, as just 34 percent of respondents said they could not participate in outdoor activities due to pandemic restrictions. Team sports were hardest hit at nearly 69 percent, followed by racquet at 55 percent.
  • Urban participants flocked to outdoor activities: Running, bicycling, day hiking, bird watching and camping participation all rose noticeably among urban respondents since March shutdowns.
  • Looking at April, May and June of 2020 versus the same period in 2019, unweighted participation rates for day hiking rose more than any other activity measured, up 8.4 percentage points.

This monthly data will be rolled into a full-year participation study to be published in 2021. The annual study starts with a nationally representative panel of over 1 million Americans and features responses from over 18,000 people ages 6 and older. The study currently includes 122 separate sports, fitness and recreational activities.

THRIVE OUTSIDE PROFILE SERIES: Lexus Morrow

Lexus Morrow

Youth Programs Assistant Coordinator, Outdoor Outreach, San Diego

Lexus Morrow was no stranger to Outdoor Outreach, an organization that gets San Diego kids into the outdoors, when she joined its staff last year: She went through the program herself when she was in high school, and ultimately built her career off of the passion for outdoor education she fostered with them. Program leads at Outdoor Outreach brought her rock climbing and surfing and gave her access to places that were previously unreachable to her, without a car, in a city where a 15-minute car ride to the beach can take hours by bus.

As the country looks to quickly make fundamental changes to access and inclusion for BIPOC across the board, Morrow says creating more equitable access to the outdoors isn’t just important, it’s urgent. “Get people back into nature, and I think you get people back into the root of who they are,” she says.

We asked Morrow about her experience with Outdoor Outreach and her hopes for the tens of thousands of students that have gone through its programs.

What was your experience with Outdoor Outreach like?

It was basically my introduction to the outdoors. I was in foster care from basically when I was an infant until I was about 10 years old, and in those 10 years, I was very much in the outdoors, in the backyard, riding my bicycle. I was a kid that played in the dirt outside of our house, or in a park. But when I want back to live with my mother after I was 10, I lost that innocent connection with the outdoors.

I was very much an antisocial kid, very isolated—I always had my head in a book, wanting to get through school as fast as possible, so I can go off to college and get away from everything, that I didn’t really think about doing anything fun. In 10th grade, a teacher kind of pressured me into joining Outdoor Outreach—she told me she’d give me extra credit on a few assignments if I went.

It’s amazing how easy trust comes, in these activities, in the outdoors. I wasn’t a trusting kid, but it was easy because these people from Outdoor Outreach were there. They were really focused and really passionate about making sure me and the other students with were having fun, that we were eating right, that we were drinking. They were all about “challenge by choice,” so we could sit out or stay on the beach and play and make sandcastles.

They weren’t expecting anything out of us, just to be there. I hadn’t had that in a long time in my life. I think that’s really what kind of changed me, as a person. Having someone just to be there without any preconceived notions about me, just wanting me to be happy.

How have you seen students respond to programming?

As a kid who was once in these programs, I can say that it’s a dramatic difference. One student I talk about all the time came in and was like, “I’m never going to rock climb.” And then she got on the rock climbing wall and didn’t want to get down. She did all four routes and then rappelled, and it was the funnest thing she could do. Another student was really afraid of heights. He managed to get up the wall and told me that some parts were difficult and he wanted to stop, but he kept going. And he said he could take that into his life, how he’s really bad at school but knows he can do it now because he rock climbed. It was a physical manifestation of something he didn’t think he could do, and so he said, “If I can do this, then I can totally finish school.”

Another student was really depressed. She came to our programs and was smiling and laughing and saying she’s really happy that she came. Kids tell you that they found their best friend, that they found an activity that they love. You see smiles and joy on the faces of kids who, when they first came in, they were closed off and didn’t want to talk to anybody and they were afraid that they would be judged by what happened in the past or what they did or their mental health issues. It’s just amazing. In eight weeks, we see such a remarkable change in these kids. It’s like looking at totally different children.

What are your hopes for the students you work with?

I hope they realize that what we’re giving them isn’t something that should have ever taken us to give it to them. That this is out there, and it’s theirs, and if they want it that they can go get it.

As much as these activities and these people are there for them, nature is also there for them, and it can be as calming and as healing as they need it to be. It’s an amazing place. It’s an amazing resource that people can use to really take control of their lives, and of their future.

It really should be something that’s there every day, that they have access to, and that they can say yes or no to. But they’re being told that they don’t have access to it, and I just want to be able to make sure that they get to these places they see on TV. These are our places. It’s not the people on TV’s place; it’s ours. And we have just as much right to it. We just have to figure out a way to give them access to it, when it should have already been given to us in the first place.

What changes can we work toward in the near future to increase access to the outdoors?

I think we need to get knowledge to people about the places they can go to recreate. Here’s where they can go to rock climb, or take beginner classes in swimming, and make sure that the information is everywhere so people can see it.

Another big thing is transportation. I never would have been able to get to the beach or anything like that, or do any of these things, if I had to get there myself. Transportation is huge.

I live in San Diego and I’m like 15 minutes by car from the beach, but it takes about three hours by bus to get there. You go the long, long way around, and most bus stops aren’t in front of the beach, they stop like a half a mile from the beach.

So if you have kids, or a car seat, or anything like that, and you want to take your family, and you don’t have a car, then you’re walking your kids down the street from the bus stop, lugging all of your stuff, your food, your water, your toys, your umbrella, all that, to get to the beach for a few hours of fun. And then you have to get back on the bus, for another two-hour journey home. The payoff isn’t worth what you have to put into it. So people don’t go. What’s the point of me going to sit on a beach for two hours if I have to spend four hours getting there? If you want to improve access, then the transportation needs to be there.

We also need to increase awareness that, for some people, the outdoors isn’t somewhere that they see themselves. That was a big thing for me—if I see someone who looks like me, I’m far more comfortable being in the outdoors. We need to make sure that if we’re going to get people outdoors, we get them outdoors in a diverse setting, so they’re not the only Black kid in a group of Asians or in a group of white people.

Why is it so urgent to increase access?

It should be here already. It’s so important because it should already exist, and it doesn’t. I think it’s important that some people don’t know about these places and these spaces, and they don’t know that they’re allowed to go. It’s not fair, and really we have seen over generations and decades how much we have lost, in terms of mental, physical, and emotional health. Nature makes healthier people, it makes better people and stronger people. And it makes a stronger planet.

We’ve lost so much of the planet—animals, people, generations of kids, as adults, with diabetes and suicide and mental health issues and physical issues. I think it really stems from the fact that we have lost our contact with the world around us, and because we don’t have the equity of being in these places. If you don’t go to these places, why the hell do you care about what happens to them? If what you’re thinking about is making rent and getting food on your table and you’re living with that much stress and anxiety and fear every day, of not being able to put food on the table, who cares about the koalas or the pandas or lions that are dying. We’ve become so focused on trying to live every day and survive every day that we’ve forgotten what living looks like.

NEW CHINA TARIFF EXCLUSIONS FOR SOME PRODUCTS, INCLUDING OFF-ROAD BICYCLE HELMETS AND FOLDING HELMETS FOR BIKES AND SCOOTERS. IS YOURS ON THE LIST?

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) recently announced that it had approved a new group of exclusions for products hit by List 4a of the China 301 tariffs, including certain off-road bicycle helmets and folding helmets. As a result, any company can gain tariff relief on items that match the product description approved by the USTR. We are writing to provide you with the details on these exclusions to ensure that OIA members are able to take advantage of this opportunity to reduce their tariff costs.

This group of products covering List 4a is retroactive to Sept. 1, 2019, and will be valid through Sept. 1, 2020. In order to claim this exclusion, your product must match the product description, and you should use Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) code 9903.88.53 when importing your product.

Again, any importer can benefit from a granted exclusion if the product matches both the 10-digit HTS subheading and the exact specifications of the granted product description. If your product matches the written description but is not currently classified under the provided HTS, we recommend that you check with your customs broker or counsel to review its applicable classification.

To claim duty refunds using a product exclusion, importers can either submit a post-summary correction (PSC) or file a protest. For future imports, the Chapter 99 number assigned to that product exclusion must be used on entries and entry summaries. Guidance on this process issued by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) can be found here.

You can find a comprehensive list of all outdoor product exclusions here.

Extension of List 4a Product Exclusions

USTR also announced that it is accepting comments on extending List 4a product exclusions that are set to expire on Sept. 1, 2020. Companies may file comments herethrough Aug. 14, 2020. If you are utilizing one of the exclusions set to expire, we encourage you to file a comment, even if you did not submit the original petition requesting an exclusion.

The comment period covers the exclusions noted above and those announced on July 7, 2020.

To learn more about the exclusion process and how to take advantage of it to reduce your tariff costs, check out the webinar OIA recently put together with our outside trade counsel from Sorini, Samet & Associates.

We will keep you updated on any future developments on China 301 product exclusions.

US-UK Free Trade Agreement: To advocate, tell us your priorities.

United States and United Kingdom Continue Negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement

The United States and United Kingdom are currently negotiating a free trade agreement, and we need your help in identifying the key priorities for the outdoor industry.

On May 5, 2020, the two sides launched the first round of negotiations and followed up with a second round on June 15. While the timing of an agreement remains unclear, there have been reports that the U.S. and U.K. may push to conclude an agreement before the November U.S. election.

OIA will track the negotiations closely and advocate on behalf of the outdoor industry’s priorities. You can help OIA identify the priorities for the industry by contacting me and by answering the following questions:

  • What products or inputs do you currently source from the U.K.? Please share a copy of the U.S. Harmonized Tariff Schedule (USHTS) codes for those products.
  • Are these products only available from the U.K.? If not, why do you choose to source from the U.K.?
  • Has this trade increased or decreased over the past 1, 3, 5, and 10 years?
  • What is the total value (in U.S. dollars) of your 2019 imports from and exports to the U.K.? (Please differentiate between imports and exports.)
  • For domestic manufacturers, what products do you currently export to the U.K. from the United States? Please provide the Schedule B USHTS codes.
  • What non-tariff barriers and/or regulatory challenges do you face in in the U.K. market?
  • How would the elimination of tariff and non-tariff barriers between the United States and the U.K. impact your business?

Please send your responses to me (rharper@outdoorindstry.org) by July 31, 2020. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out with any questions or to learn more about how you can participate in this process.

Call to Action: OIA Needs Your Support

The health of OIA is tied to the health of our industry. We are all experiencing incredible business impacts due to COVID-19. No business is unaffected. And that includes our industry trade association.

For years, royalties from the Outdoor Retailer shows made up a large portion of OIA’s revenue, allowing for the breadth of essential OIA activities, ranging from defending public lands and battling tariffs to providing tools to navigate the threat of climate change. OIA does the work that businesses depend on, but cannot easily tackle alone. Now, we are facing a cancelled summer show and an uncertain funding future. It is time for all businesses to stand up and support OIA directly.

OIA must make every dollar count and maximize its value for members. Since March, when the pandemic took hold, salaries and expenses have been cut by more than 40 percent. Even with these cuts, OIA quickly pivoted to become a vital source of resources, webinars, education and advocacy action to support the industry during a crisis. The analytics and attendance numbers on all these efforts are record-setting.

Thirty years ago, outdoor business leaders formed the association to fight back a tax that threatened the viability of our young industry. It was the beginning of coming together to face a big obstacle. Some of the many wins since then have included:

  • Creating the Outdoor Recreation Economy Report, launched in 2012, that measured our enormous economic impact (more than 2% of GDP) and transformed our relationships in D.C.
  • Leading the introduction and passage of the REC Act, which directed the Bureau of Economic Analysis to measure the impact of outdoor recreation on the U.S. economy, Outdoor recreation is now taken seriously in politics.
  • Leading the movement to oppose and defeat the proposed Backpack Tax which would have levied an additional burden on top of our already disproportionately tariffed specialty goods.
  • In 2019 alone, OIA efforts through tariff bills and exclusions saved the industry $120 million in taxes.
  • Advocating for the protection of millions of acres of public lands and increased investment in outdoor recreation at the federal and state-level. Despite helping collect more than a million signatures, Bears Ears and Escalante suffered unprecedented reductions, but without OIA efforts the damage would likely have been much deeper and broader across our nation’s 117 monuments.
  • Increasing outdoor participation and building long-term community engagement through the Outdoor Foundation and Thrive Outside Communities initiative. Today, there are four flagship communities: San Diego, Oklahoma City, Atlanta and Grand Rapids, engaging thousands of young people.
  • In five years, facilitating the growth and development of 160 of our industry’s emerging leaders through the Skip Yowell Future Leadership Academy, a six-month, immersive education and mentorship program.
  • Creating the Climate Action Corps, one of the boldest industry collaborative efforts fight climate change by making measurable and meaningful carbon reductions by 2030. More than 60 businesses have already joined to ensure their collective business sustainability.

OIA played a major role in shaping our industry. But there is more to do. OIA’s mission is more relevant than ever: thriving businesses, thriving people and a thriving planet. Thriving is in short supply right now. As we come out the other side of this pandemic, we need the unifying power, collective voice and the broad perspective of our trade association.

It is a hard time to make an ask, but in the face of losing almost half of OIA’s revenue in Outdoor Retailer royalties, our trade association needs your direct support. You saved significant travel and exhibiting costs associated with the show cancellation, so please consider committing a small portion of those savings to OIA. We make this request with humility and deep respect for your own challenges right now. The North Face, Smartwool, Hydro Flask, Patagonia, Eagle Creek and W.L. Gore have all pledged money.

We ask that you please join in making a donation to OIA that replaces the royalty fee that you would have paid through your tradeshow exhibiting costs. If you have questions about your royalty payment and what it would have been this year, please reach out to membership@outdoorindustry.org. We are here to serve you. Thank you for your consideration.

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Audio Outdoorist: Campfire Conversation: Climate Action After a Pandemic

Can companies in the outdoor industry afford to lean into climate action in the midst and immediate aftermath of a pandemic? For the next hour, you’ll get to listen in as they chat candidly about their respective companies’ approaches to climate and sustainability work. Throughout their conversation, you’ll hear four recurrent themes: risk, resiliency, equity and recovery.

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BIG NEWS: Senate passes the Great American Outdoors Act

GREAT AMERICAN OUTDOORS ACT PASSES SENATE 73-25. ON TO THE HOUSE.

Today, we’re reaching out with good news. The Great American Outdoors Act, the legislation to provide full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and provide funding to begin tackling the deferred maintenance backlog on federal public lands, PASSED 73-25 with overwhelming bipartisan support.

As we take steps toward economic recovery from COVID-19, federal investment in our public lands and waterways is critical to boost local economies, create thousands of jobs and protect and improve our national parks.

As our advocacy efforts transition to the House of Representatives, OIA would like to thank the senators who sponsored, co-sponsored and championed the Great American Outdoors Act, and we also encourage you to thank your senators for their support.

While this vote was an important hurdle to overcome, it does not have the president’s signature yet, so stay tuned. We will reach out again soon with an ask for your engagement with your House delegation.

Thank you for your support, outreach and efforts so far. That GAOA passed the Senate with the majority is a testament to the bipartisan nature of our work and a demonstration of the impact of our industry’s collective voice.

Thrive Outside Profile Series: Ray Rivera

Since he was a kid growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the outdoors have been a passion for Ray Rivera. Through a government career involving a stint at the Department of the Interior and the White House Council on Environmental Quality under the Obama Administration, Rivera has long tied together his two passions: public policy and expanding access to and diversity within outdoor recreation.

Now, on the board for the Outdoor Foundation, Rivera is working on the Thrive Outside Community Initiative, which provides multi-year capacity building grants to diverse communities in order to create or strengthen partnerships between existing local organizations such as schools, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs and nonprofit conservation and outdoor organizations that create repeat and reinforcing positive outdoor experiences for kids and families. We asked for his thoughts on the program’s goals, the importance of diversifying the next generations of outdoorists, and what drives his passion for the project.

 

What is Thrive Outside trying to achieve?

Thrive Outside is about collective impact. If we’re going to solve the problem of diversifying outdoor recreation, including socioeconomic and age diversity, it’s going to have to come from these communities and these organizations that already have members who are more diverse in many different ways.

Instead of creating new programs—unless that’s what a community wants—we’re focusing on connecting groups that have already been doing the work, so we can multiply their impact. There may be, for example, a kayaking group five miles downstream from a group doing science exploration on the banks of the river, and before they weren’t talking to each other. But now, they’re collaborating and leveraging each other’s expertise, getting each other’s participants to cross-pollinate and get into different aspects of the outdoor world.

 

What’s your dream for the impact Thrive Outside can have?

We’re working with all these communities and then kind of pulling the quantitative and qualitative resources to keep finding what’s working, what’s not, what the best practices are, and what’s making a difference.

We want to help kids have frequent, repeat experiences—not just experience the outdoors one time. Sometimes people get to go to the Tetons for a week and it changes their life, but in terms of creating lifelong conservatists and outdoor enthusiasts, that usually comes from repeatable and varied experiences.

 

What was your outdoor experience like growing up?

I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we were very fortunate to have public lands all around us. I also grew up fairly low-income. My dad’s side of the family is from New Mexico, and he met my mom when he was stationed in South Korea when he was in the Army. Growing up, we would go camping here or there, but we didn’t spend a ton of time in the outdoors. It was actually my uncle and aunt, who didn’t have kids, who took my brother and I out for moonlight hikes and taught us how to mountain bike. As I got into politics, public policy, and government, I quickly started to realize that we have to do a lot of work to protect these places we love so much. They don’t just take care of themselves. It takes resources, people, and commitment.

 

How do the outdoors influence your life today?

Politics and government are places where people have a lot of passion, but it’s also very frenetic. It’s a career where you’re carrying two cell phones and checking four email addresses and the news cycle and the spin cycle of the day. Since high school, it’s been part of my life to live this fast-paced, frenetic advocacy, grassroots-organizing lifestyle. Maybe you’re knocking on doors all day, so you get a little bit of fresh air, but you’re not really in nature. Outdoor recreation is the counterpoint to that and allows me to live a balanced lifestyle, so that when I have time away from organizing for something that was so passionate and all-consuming, I can get outdoors and mountain bike or do some skiing and hiking.

 

What are your hopes for future generations of outdoorists? What does the ideal outdoor world look like for them?

Aside from inclusivity, we need to demystify the outdoors and increase the number of outdoor activities that you can access within close range, especially in urban areas. There are so many ways to be involved in the outdoors, and we have to send that message. The outdoors is for people barbecuing at Sloans Lake in Denver and for people who want to hang off a cliff over a canyon. I think we have to do a better job of messaging that.

The outdoors also needs our protection, love, and commitment to perpetuate it for the next generation. As people get involved with the outdoors, they also need to learn how to impact public policy to protect the outdoors. The outdoors are an avenue for you to get involved with public policy in a way that feels very personal to you. We all feel the difference when we can spend many magical moments in the outdoors, and we know what it means to our life.