MHW 10 Year Anniversary Pot Luck Celebration

Sky: The Mountain Hardwear Crew celebrate their 10 year anniversary the way they know best.... Pot Luck Style (meat courtesy of Gore)! Members of the Gore Company join the crew in their celebration and memories of the last 10 years. 

Al: the big challenge here is naming names. I've tried to add everyone that had a 'speaking part' but getting adding any sort of coherent naming to the video (by timestamp?) is pretty overwhelming.

Transcript:

Paul Kramer: Folks this is – I guess we’re still sort of spread out. There’s lots of folks outside, folks around the building already taken their food out to their cornerx. Nice to have a barbecue again. This is courtesy of Gore, they’ve provided this – a couple of applause [applause] a lot of you know them pretty well, a lot of you in accounting have probably paid a lot of those bills to those guys. They’re our largest supplier.

This is our 10th anniversary, Mountain Hardwear started 10 years ago I guess this Friday. So this is our 10th birthday party here and we’re very happy to do it and have it and Gore wanted to be part of it and they are probably our most important – they are our most important partners so it’s very nice for them to supply this for us. And thanks to Kent [Laak] as usual. He’s done a great job on the barbecue good job with that knife.

Mike Wallenfels: I’ll add one thing to that. Every industry or business is not without its politics. And when Mountain Hardwear first started there were a lot of politics involved. There were people who didn’t want us to succeed and a lot of those people who didn’t necessarily want Mountain Hardwear to succeed or even get off the ground were good customers of Gore at the time. And we felt it was very critical that as Mountain Hardwear started that a brand like Gore-Tex was part of our product line, that our pinnacle products would use their fabrics.

And it wasn’t an easy thing to do back then, or even now, to necessarily get a license to be able to build and make and sell Gore-Tex products. A lot of people have been trying for a number of years to get it and I think I’d like to recognize that Gore took a lot of risk in basically opening us up the first year that we were going to be in business. And with Gore-Tex products and also later on with Windstopper products have really helped us get off the ground. And I know that they probably caught some grief about that from some of their customers and it’s really a very important part of what made us start as a company 10 years ago. So thanks a lot for taking the risk and I think we’ve shared in some benefits too.

Audience: Thanks you [applause].

Jack Gilbert: A couple of added words along the same vein when we started Mountain Hardwear was a nonexistent name and in order to have credibility initially we needed to tie ourselves to some means that had industry credibility and no name had more credibility in the outdoor industry than Gore in 1993. And we’ve worked on a lot of projects together in the last 10 years and as we look forward there’s a lot of things that we really need to improve our communication on going forward for the next few years, especially our international effort. We’re going to try to do some cooperative  measures in Europe. Gore name is extremely strong over there. We’re not as well known over there as we are here and so that’s one of the areas that we’re working on. But I do appreciate our relationship and what they’ve done for us. We got some lively discussions on various points from time to time but I think we’re headed in the right direction and I just want to say thanks.

Speaker 2: Okay, thank you.

Mike: Anybody from Gore?

Dan Madden: Yes.

Mike: We actually have a lot of important folks here and Paul’s going to…

Paul: Six guys from Gore here today.

Mike: Why don’t you introduce everybody?

Paul: This is Dan Madden. Dan has been with us for a very long time. He’s our Gore rep and we see Dan quite a bit, as much as anybody out there. He’s based in Colorado but you’ve probably all seen him walk around here a few times.

Mike: When we first started Mark Hrubant was our Gore-Tex rep.

Paul: But couldn’t sign the license.

Mike: That’s right.

Dan: Now, what I would like to do if I could just for a minute is introduce – as you know we have two basic products..but where people don’t like that very much, you guys [unclear] right now. We have Gore-Tex which is kind of the grand daddy of them all that brought us to where we are. Greg [Pennen] is what we call our Business Unit Leader, responsible for all the Gore-Tex business in North America. And then where’s Chris? Chris Ryan is our business unit leader for Windstopper...which by the way Windstopper at one stage would be lost but without Mountain Hardwear...we are equally appreciative of your efforts which you’ve done for Windstopper to put it on the map. And then we have – where’s Glen? Glen is what we call the product specialist for Gore-Tex and then John Kozinski... he’s product specialist for Windstopper.

Jack: I thought you guys were all just associates, I didn’t know you had any other....

Mike: Associates that specializes

Dan: All that stuff you read about that you get to do what you want to do. It's not that way. I tried that.

Jack: Maybe 3 years ago.

Dan: And then actually the most important guy actually in the whole room is Michael Wilson. Because he is – I mean we can all do our thing and have all our schemes and we say this and we talk about Qualified and we do all these great things but the rubber meets the road right over here and if Mike doesn’t take the order in and the order out, we’re all in big trouble. So I think what we would like to do if you will indulge us is just have a few toasts. I would like to just offer one general as the Account Manager and with special thanks actually to Mark [Hrubant] because Mark without licensing them, none of us would be standing in this room

Jack: I thought it was for quitting his job.

[Laughter]

Dan: That’s the second part. So when Mark decided that this would be a better place then I was fortunate enough to actually take over the Mountain Hardwear’s account. So I’m very appreciative of Mountain Hardwear. So a toast to all of you.

Speakers: Cheers.

Dan: And then I think we have Chris or Glen?

Chris: I just would like to say I very much enjoyed working with your team over the last several years with the Windstopper group and you guys really have helped to make us a much bigger presence in the outdoor industry. I think we got great success working together and we really appreciate that. But even more than that I think just working with the people here at Mountain Hardwear, you can see the difference, the culture here, the quality of what you’re doing and your vision and your goals, and your standards very high and sticking through them, I’d say we really respect that and we very much enjoy working with you guys. So congratulations on your 10 year.

Speakers: Thank you.

Dan: And to 10 great more, 100 great more whatever it takes. Glenn you have to go in front of the camera.

Glen: My turn? And I’d also like to propose a toast to Mountain Hardwear, a  truly tremendous customer of W.L. Gore’s. Thank you, thank you, thank you all.

Mike Way to suck up.

Glen: Thank you very much also for your patience. I know at times we sometimes don’t deliver on time and we don’t deliver with the best quality we need to, but we continue to work on it and  with your feedback we try to get better. So thank you for your patience, thank you for the opportunity to work together and thank you for the opportunity to develop new things. It’s a lot of fun. Best wishes for your next 10. Here it is to you.

Speakers: Cheers.

Dan: And to Kent for a great lunch.

[Lots of cheers.]

Martin Zemitis: What would you say about this long line here?

Speaker: You know at Summit Hut dinners I always end up getting my food last so I’m kind of used to it. It makes no difference. Look Rowan is after me, Sean’s after me. End of the line, hey, hey the line’s up here buddy. Yeah, that’s right, right here. Come on.

When you have rockstar guy: closeup.

Rowan Jimenez: Yes, I’m the last on the line.

Martin: But I guess I am now.

Rowan: [we need Rowan to add this part].

Martin: What does that mean?

Rowan : If you go to beer you lost your chair but I guess you come back you can get it. We’ll let you go forward. You should be forward. You should be the first one in line.

Martin: How come?

Rowan: So that your camerawork doesn’t miss out.

Martin: Get out of the way come, come on.

Carlos Toste: Hello there!

Martin: Whoa, look at the salmon, Kent.

Jack: Kent's done it again.

Cynthia Chapelle: This is like a little taste.

Juliann Galvan: I didn’t know Martin was taking me while I’m checking out the salmon.

Martin: Okay, let’s see what Cynthia have on her plate, okay. What does Julia have on her plate? Kao Hinh, how’s it going?

Kao Hinh: Pretty good.

Martin: Good. So you guys gonna let me the back in line here?

Sean McDevitt: Yes,  back of the line. There won’t be anything left by the time we get up there.

Kimiyo Galyen: This is all the salmon you have?

Kent: I have one more salmon.

Kimiyo: Okay.

Rowan: Stop it, stop it, stop it.

Derek Mitchell I want to show you what’s left. This is what’s left. Nice job Kent, thanks again!

Juliann: Jack, wait.

Jack: What are you doing? Are you I charge? I thought Martin was in charge of that thing. I have nothing to say Juliann  to you. You come up in front of the camera.

Juliann: No, I’m totally scared of the camera.

Jack: Oh, come on.

Derek: Do you have any idea what you’re doing?

[I need the name of the woman rocking the fade.]