Jack Gilbert at Sierra Designs

Powered by Drupal

Transcript:

This is an Outdoor Industry story. I’m here with Mike Wallenfels. My name is Jack Gilbert and in 1993 I was the president of a company called Sierra Designs in Berkeley, California. After a 20 year career with North Face I had come back to Berkley I was excited about the smaller company. We weren’t as big as
The North Face but we had some great people and some great designs and we were part of an outdoor conglomerate that was owned by Odyssey Industry, the Hong Kong company that had purchased North Face and Marmot and Sierra Designs in 1988.

And for the first year on the job I had a great time. I had hired some terrific people. And then our parent company in Hong Kong had the misfortune to go into bankruptcy while leaving the smaller companies alone. So we had to figure out what the heck we were going to do, what was going to happen to our company. The chances were we were going to be sold to somebody, but the opportunity came along that we might actually be able to buy the company ourselves if we could raise some money and we were pretty excited about that. It seemed like – I was 50 years old and I thought maybe it was time for me to be part of something that I owned a little bit of.

So we’re in contact on a regular basis with our Hong Kong company and things got more and more bizarre. A lot of questions came through that were not really worth answering. They didn’t have anything to do with running the business. And so finally after a matter of months I stopped answering the faxes I got. There was no email this time. And finally I got a letter from the president of the company Bill Simon saying, “Have you fallen off the face of the earth? What’s wrong with you? Best regards, Bill.”

by Author
JackGilbert JackGilbert's picture

This Story is part of a Series...

Transcript: This is an Outdoor Industry story. I’m here with Mike Wallenfels. My name is Jack... Read Story
Q: Did this company (Mountain Hardwear) have a name yet? Transcript: Jack Gilbert: I am not sure... Read Story
Jack talks about employee ownership, seeking out financing, and meeting John Cumming and then Ian.... Read Story
Mike Wallenfels asks Jack about trying to buy Sierra Designs and why that didn't succeed. "Didn't... Read Story
Transcript: I’m Paul Kramer and I was Vice President of Sierra Designs. I started out there, well... Read Story
Transcipt: Paul: Jack, I was in Hong Kong as you said and I had written a letter because of course... Read Story
Transcript: Paul: Yeah, it was a scary thing to start Mountain Hardware for me. I’d been at Sierra... Read Story
Helen Li is absolutely the best QC, QA person in the industry bar none! Absolutely! [See the... Read Story
The founding act of this website was to get the Mountain Hardwear founders that lived in the San... Read Story
Transcript: Mike: My name is Mike Wallenfels. At the time at Sierra Designs when just before... Read Story
The question: How long had you worked at Sierra Designs prior to the beginning of MHW? Transcript... Read Story
Transcript: Mike: Halloween day; so I was incredibly nervous that day. I knew what was going on in... Read Story
Transcript: Yea...so there were really only a few of us in the office, a handful, only 6 people,... Read Story
Transcript: So I am Christina Clark, mostly called Chris and my original position at Mountain... Read Story
l asks Chris about how she heard about Jack deciding to start a new company and how she decided to... Read Story
Chris tells about leaving The North Face for Mountain Hardwear Read Story
Transcript: I’m Roberta Hernandez and at the time that we left Sierra Designs I was the strategic... Read Story
Transcript: Roberta: It was very kind of nerve-wracking that day with a lot of anticipation what... Read Story
Transcript: Roberta: The first couple of weeks at Mountain Hardwear I think for me were –... Read Story
JackGilbert's picture
by Author JackGilbert

Your comments are loved and appreciated.

Start a Story of Your OwnStart a Story Icon

 

Do us a favor - 
Please take 2 minutes and give us feedback. Thanks!

Story Copyright
09/11/17