Moving the Needle

By James Edward Mills

In the winter of 2016, outdoor retailer Lisa Hollenbeck was alerted to a negative customer comment on Facebook. The co-owner of Alpine Shop, a ski, bike and camping store near St. Louis, Missouri, immediately wanted to know what had happened. The details of the incident could be described as a simple misunderstanding, but the fact remained—a customer was not happy.

“I just left the Alpine Shop!” the customer wrote on her personal Facebook page. “I will never patron[ize] that store, even online.” The woman, whom we’ll call Helen*, complained that she received poor customer service. She felt that her needs and interests were being ignored or at best under appreciated. In her Facebook post, she said that an employee “abruptly walked away not asking if I needed him further or wanted to purchase anything. I cannot deal with [a] rude salesman when I am going to spend my money. Got a problem with my skin color[?] Get over it!”

An African American of middle age, Helen believed she was being mistreated because she is Black. Two years after the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police officers in nearby Ferguson and the riots that followed, racial tensions in much of Missouri still run high. And this occurrence at Alpine Shop in the mostly white suburb of Kirkwood seemed to Helen like confirmation of her belief that she was not welcome there. But to Hollenbeck nothing could be further from the truth. “We want everyone who comes through our door to feel like they just got a big hug,” she says. “It just kills me that she didn’t get that.”

Not long after Helen posted her comment, Hollenbeck got her on the phone to apologize and to better understand the circumstance. It didn’t take long for the two women to realize what went wrong. “Ironically this whole thing happened because of how we train our employees,” Hollenbeck says. “This is a low-pressure sales environment. We teach our people to back off once they give the customer the information they need to make a decision. ‘Helen’ was upset that we didn’t ask for the sale.”

When it comes to customer service, perception can very easily become reality. In Helen’s mind, she found it odd that the employee wouldn’t just take her money. She believed in the moment that Alpine Shop didn’t want her business. But when Hollenbeck explained what had happened, Helen soon understood that her race had nothing to do with it. “We had a great conversation regarding the incident, which [I] was assured will never happen again,” she wrote on Facebook a few days later. “As well [I] made a new friend.”

Across the country, situations like this happen every day. Racially sensitive incidents ranging from micro-aggressions to blatant acts of discrimination occur at commercial establishments from coast to coast. Most incidents go unreported and ignored. Few are ever resolved. Outdoor specialty retail stores are not immune. Despite their best efforts to be welcoming to customers from all walks of life, many shop owners and managers are left to wonder, “Why aren’t there more people of color in my store?”

Let’s just say it’s complicated. Located traditionally in all-white suburban neighborhoods throughout North America, outdoor retail stores are a reflection of the communities they serve. In 1934, the Federal Housing Authority began to explicitly deny home loans in developments where most of the residents were Black. It can be argued that the same policies of racial segregation, commonly known as redlining, that restricted where Black and brown people in the United States could live, also confined the places where they could work, do business, go to school, play, and even shop. In some areas, these policies were in place through the 1980s. Conversely, the concentration of personal wealth in the predominantly white enclaves, generated by home ownership and passed from one generation to the next, created disposable income and opportunities for leisurely pastimes like camping, backpacking, and skiing that were simply not available to people of color less than 40 years ago.

Low rates of participation among Black and brown people in outdoor recreation today can certainly be attributed to the racial segregation of the past. Though a great many social strides have been made to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in education, financial prosperity, and political influence, people of color still lag behind their white counterparts in most realms of social progress. That includes outdoor recreation. However, as racial disparities persist into the present, people of good conscience should ask themselves, “What can we do to correct them?”

Much has been reported lately on the increasing diversity of the outdoor industry. Through social media, people of color are presenting themselves as avid users and buyers of outdoor equipment, clothing, and footwear. Major retailers like REI and high-profile brands such as The North Face are working to improve their representation of racial minorities among their advertising campaigns, brand ambassadors, employees, and customers. But smaller independent retailers like Alpine Shop continue to struggle with this very complex dilemma. “I can count on one hand the number of non-white employees we’ve had in the 20-plus years that I’ve been here,” Hollenbeck says. “I mean if we were to just hire a bunch of Black people to be more diverse, isn’t that just tokenism?”

Since its inception, the outdoor industry has prided itself on authenticity. Shop employees, managers, and senior executives have typically worked their way up through the ranks after years and even decades of personal experience in the outdoors. The thought of hiring someone just for the sake of appearances would be out of the question for most. It’s hard for many outdoor professionals to imagine having to work at recruiting participants into an industry to which they gravitated so naturally. But veteran retailers like Chuck Millsaps, co-owner of the Great Outdoor Provision Co., believe that diversity and inclusion are priorities worth achieving. “And we’re failing miserably!” he says. “But I am so enriched personally by doing it that I am committed to not giving up.”

With seven locations in North Carolina and two in Virginia, the Great Outdoor Provision Co. is an outdoor industry leader in the Southeast. Having spent much of his early career as a guide in Yellowstone National Park, Millsaps understands the value of transformative experiences in nature and the importance of environmental preservation. As a retailer, he takes community engagement very seriously and does what he can to connect with every segment of the population his business serves. But when it comes to reaching a consumer audience of Black and brown folks in two former Confederate states, Millsaps admits he has some difficulty.

“Our managers seek to hire diversity the best way that we can, but we don’t really have a brand that strikes as welcoming to where the pool of applicants is as strong as it could be,” he says. “If you wander around the Great Outdoor Provision Co., you’re in a very high-end-economic, white, 50-year-history neighborhood shopping center.”

But in his efforts to improve the diversity of his customer base, Millsaps works directly with leaders in his community who serve people of color. He has forged partnerships with local organizations like the Boys & Girls Club, the YMCA, and the Boy Scouts of America. The Great Outdoor Provision Co. offers these groups discounts on equipment and apparel purchases, supports special events at area parks that encourage outdoor recreation, and invites youth with their families to in-store education seminars on the basics of hiking and camping.

“What adults need are the handles to grab onto this thing that they want to do anyway on behalf of their family,” Millsaps says. “Our job is supporting them in that effort and then building it in to where it becomes a habit.”

Outdoor speciality retailers have a unique opportunity to lead the way toward better engagement with communities of color. By working proactively to invite underrepresented segments of the population into their stores, shop owners can convert visitors into customers.

Diquan Edmonds is currently A graduate student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. He’s working toward a master’s degree in parks, recreation, and tourism management while serving as a wellness graduate research assistant at the the North Carolina Recreation and Parks Association (NCRPA). A regular shopper at the Great Outdoor Provision Co., Edmonds, who is African American, has often wondered why he doesn’t see more people who look like him out enjoying nature. “Throughout my life I noticed there weren’t many Black people in the outdoors,” he says. “You hear these stereotypes that Black people just don’t go outside.”

But Edmonds knew from his own experience that simply wasn’t true. Working now with the NCRPA in cooperation with the Great Outdoor Provision Co., he’s exploring ways to make outdoor recreation more accessible to a broader audience. “I think recognizing certain things and changing what we think of outdoor recreation as a whole might be a way to change the narrative. I can think of something like barbecuing,” he says. “I can remember all of my family reunions being outside in a park. And although we weren’t doing something like hiking or other ‘traditional’ outdoor recreation activities, we were still spending time outdoors. So maybe if it comes from a place that acknowledges that we are already spending time outdoors, we can introduce new activities.”

The outdoors can mean different things to different people. Certainly there is more than one way of spending time outside, and if we shift our thinking to a new narrative that includes different characters, our perception of the outdoors instantly expands. Outdoor Afro (OA) is a national institution that helps African Americans in particular to define their own stories about how they enjoy the natural world. In Charleston, South Carolina, local OA organizer Adrienne Troy-Frazier works with Joe Campbell, owner of Sea Kayak Carolina, to create paddling trips for area members.

“He also offers OA free meeting space for our other gatherings,” she says. “We are able to fully control the historical narrative on our paddling trips with him, which was a major challenge with other outfitters here.” Trips with Outdoor Afro typically include a detailed lesson on the cultural contributions of African Americans to the natural sites the groups visit. They learn about people of the past who share their heritage and made an impact on the places they explore. Within this historical context, participants can envision themselves as part of the landscape they are paddling through. This sense of inclusion affirms the understanding that they truly belong.

“Joe has fitted at least six OA members with sea kayaks in the last three years and provides affordable, sometimes free, private paddle instruction to several members,” Troy-Frazier says. “At least one has become ACA (American Canoe Association) certified. Several others are working toward the same with his guidance. He has helped us build a Black paddling community in a place where it is an activity deemed exclusive to whites.”

Sea Kayak Carolina is a prime example of the positive effects that direct engagement with communities of color can achieve. Having purchased the business in 2012, Joe Campbell runs his operation like a start-up, seeking out and expanding his customer base wherever possible. As a purveyor of high-end kayaks and paddling equipment, he introduces new users to the sport and encourages them to become avid users. But Campbell is the first to admit it’s not easy. “I don’t fit the demographic, but I didn’t think that would be a problem at the time,” he says. “But I realize now it’s one of the many challenges.”

Campbell is Black. Despite a great deal of personal passion for sea kayaking as well as professional expertise, he sometimes struggles to convince his mostly white customers that he can provide them with the goods and services they need. “A lot of people just aren’t used to seeing a Black guy with dreadlocks paddling a sea kayak. To this day, I have customers who’ve told me ‘I was warned about you so I wouldn’t get caught off guard’,” he says with a chuckle. “So I understand that’s a limitation and a hurdle that I have to jump over each time. It’s part of the business, getting people to come in and understand that I offer the same quality of service as the competition. It’s all part of it for me.”

But it’s important to realize that just as Campbell works to build rapport and personal relationships with his customers, all speciality retailers face the same challenge. Whether we’re talking about kayaking, camping, or backpacking, it’s the job of outdoor retailers to share their love of nature with everyone and to make them feel welcome.

“I want people from all over the world to come out and kayak with us. I especially want the local community to feel super comfortable with water, kayaking, and just getting out there and enjoying themselves,” Campbell says. “That’s really the ultimate goal. Yeah there’s profit involved, but I’ve been blessed with access. Now I want to give that access to other people.”

*Despite numerous attempts to interview this Alpine Shop customer directly, the author could not affirm her consent to be named in this story. Though her Facebook exchange is freely available to be read online, we use the alias Helen to protect her identity and her privacy.

You can read this story and more in the Winter 2019 issue of Outdoor Retailer Magazine. Published twice each year, Outdoor Retailer Magazine embodies the people, culture, and ideas that encompass independent outdoor specialty retail. We believe that engaging in thoughtful, complex conversations about the business of retail, the people who make it work, and the outdoor experience will energize the growth and evolution of the outdoor industry. Be sure to pick up a copy of the new Summer 2019 issue at Summer Market, June 18-20 in Denver, Colorado.