The Conservation Alliance: Outdoor Brands Make a Stand

Unknown Speaker 0:00 The following is a production of wild idea media. Unknown Speaker 0:06 Welcome to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. We are super excited today to have a conversation about and with the conservation Alliance. We're going to have Paul Hendricks from the alliance and Vince mazuca from the firm osprey, who many of you probably wear on your back when you're out in the woods. Unknown Speaker 0:29 It's gonna be a it's gonna be a great conversation. It's kind of been a whirlwind week. The day we're recording this, we've had some kind of big news on public lands. But Anders, good morning to you. Oh, hi, Bill. Bill, this is a rare early morning recording for us, but I don't know about you, I did the responsible thing last night. I minimized my screen time and my alcohol intake so I could begin my elaborate skincare routine early and the sack at a reasonable hour. And it paid off. I slept like that, celestial seasoning, sleepy time, bear and this morning, I feel bright eyed and bushy tailed. I assume you feel the same way. Unknown Speaker 1:10 I wish I could say I do Unknown Speaker 1:12 know it was, it was a it was a night here at our house and Unknown Speaker 1:18 in Creston, Montana. So Unknown Speaker 1:21 Andrews, you've met, you've met our Dutch Shepherd Duke. There's a few things that Duke really, really hates. One is our fox in the neighborhood whenever it starts to vocalize. But new one last night, we had a mountain lion start to vocalize at about 1130 last night. And to say that Duke lost his shit would be an understatement. And so I dealt, I dealt with a pretty aggravated Dutch Shepherd all night. But I'm curious if you you know that happened in my house, because I happen to sort of live in the woods here, but like, Have you ever had a sound out in the wild that just stopped you in your tracks, other than your snoring? Unknown Speaker 1:58 There is that. It's frightening, that honk shoe coming from a nearby tent? Yeah, Unknown Speaker 2:03 that's a good question. I Yes, I have, I've heard, but I, for me, it's not like the howlings or the cries. For me, it's like the thing that you hear, like in the underbrush, right? You hear some critter moving around, and you think there's a 99% chance this is like a raccoon or, you know, an armadillo, but maybe it's a murderer. Yes, never know. You just never know. I had, I had a moment when I was hiking with the with Laura, my wife, and our executive producer, I always wondered if I would recognize the sound of a rattlesnake in the wild. And we're hiking on this trail in the Cherokee National Forest, and I stopped in my tracks because I recognized it immediately. And about, I don't know, six, seven feet ahead of me was, was a huge, beautiful rattlesnake just right in the middle of the trail. And I slowly, I'm like, taking my pack off and get my camera out. It was really, really beautiful specimen. I turn around and my wife's, Laura's, like, 60 yards going the other way down the trail, like, where are you going? We can go around. And she's like, I'm going to the effing truck. She was done at that point. So I've encountered a rattlesnake before, and it is, like evolutionary it you stop in your tracks and you wonder what chemical in your brain made you pull up like that. Because it's not a conscious decision. It's something deep inside that says danger, and at least they warn you living haven't spent as many years in the south copperheads are Unknown Speaker 3:29 blend into the landscape, and they don't tell you they're there, but, but, yeah, that was a pretty funny moment. Well, let's get on with the conversation. I don't think people need to hear about our experiences in the woods too much more. But today we're joined by Paul Hendricks, who's the executive director of the conservation Alliance, and Vince Mazzuca, who is the director of marketing for osprey, to talk about the Alliance we're obviously going to talk about probably this moment in time a little bit we're having with public lands. So Paul Vince, welcome to the show. Glad to have you guys here. Thanks for having us. Yeah, thank you. So I'm always interested to hear sort of foundational arcs. And Paul, I'll start with you. Can you maybe share how the conservation Alliance first came together? Yeah, so the conservation Alliance, which in a very succinct snippet, is we represent the business voice for conservation. So it's good to have that as we pull back 35 years ago, when the Alliance started the rumor. The folklore is that the CEOs of Patagonia, Rei, The North Face and Kelty all gathered in a small room in San Francisco, and they like the story always makes it sound like it's this, like, dingy, smoky room that everyone like, kind of collaborate on, but I can't imagine Ron chonard ever in a dingy, smoky room. So I'm guessing it was out some in the woods, actually, but they all got together and said, You know what, we're not doing enough as an industry to protect lands and waters that we all each do some individual work together, but all these other industries. Unknown Speaker 5:00 Are coming together to protect their priorities. The backbone of our economy, the backbone of our businesses is land and water, and we need to come together to do a little bit more and to bring our power together going forward. And so what they did was, 35 years ago, they all chipped in a little bit of money. It started with $40,000 and they decided to start making grants out the door to conservation organizations who were doing work on the ground to protect specific landscapes. Fast forward to today, 35 years later, we're an alliance of over 200 businesses, and we still do grant making out the door, but we also have a pretty robust advocacy program that we feel that kind of the grassroots engagement and the grasstops engagement provides a great paradigm for driving significant action to protect lands waters in North America. I want to talk a little bit about those programs. Bill and I have had a number of conversations on this podcast, usually with folks who, at one point worked for one of our nation's land management agencies, who've made the point that the philosophies guiding those agencies have changed a lot in the past few decades. I don't think that's better demonstrated anywhere than the move from a boom and bust economy centered on extracting oil, gas and minerals on our public lands to an outdoor recreation economy that uses those same lands sustainably. I mean, as you guys know, the Outdoor recreation is a larger part of our nation's GDP than oil and gas is now. Unknown Speaker 6:31 I know the conservation Alliance and its members played a large role in that philosophical change. How did they do it and why? Yeah, yeah, that's a really good question. So, and as you alluded to it, that the outdoor economy, which is kind of the what we refer to as a lot of the businesses, from the national organizations, such as Patagonian ri who started conservation Alliance, to small outfitters who are in the local communities, doing, you know, canoe trips, guiding services, all those, all those different businesses. So combined, it's a $1.2 trillion economy. When you look at and calculate that across the GDP for the year and just forever, that number wasn't out there, right? We always knew the direct economic generation from oil and gas, from mining and everything, but those numbers, they weren't out there, and we didn't have anything to talk to whereas we always kind of philosophically said, Hey, outdoor rec is great for economies and okay, that gateway communities, but the numbers weren't there. And we know that numbers are really impactful, especially with current administration that looks at data. Look at jobs, they look at economic data. So it took a long time to get some of that the data together, but once we did, we really started to kind of socialize that and say, Hey, this actually, these numbers are big. It's a big economy, and we need to start getting in the ears of our elected officials to make sure that they know that recreation is a key driver. And I think what we always try to bring into our narrative is that, yeah, you can look at trillion dollars every year type of thing, and you can look at the annual economic generation, but, and this is hard when we're in a political system that operates on two to four year cycles. But if you look out outdoor recreation economy, it is a sustainable and long term economy, right? You can build businesses that aren't going to be subject to boom and bust cycles and drop off in 10 years. And I know Vince, I'm sure will talk about some of the work we're doing out on the western slope of Colorado, where, you know, there's a great foil between uranium mining and boom and bust cycles with recreation. You see these amazing communities, like fruit on Grand Junction and Durango have built themselves on the backbone of recreation, and it's making a big difference. Wow. Unknown Speaker 9:01 Vince, I know Osprey just stepped into the pinnacle level of support for the conservation Alliance, a significant investment in the Alliance, which, by default, means a significant investment in the protection of wild places. And I'm curious how much you can share how, sort of how leadership inside Osprey came to make that commitment. Sort of, what's the, what's the conversations that go on inside a company like osprey, to think about stepping up to that, you know, that pinnacle level of support, which is, again, a significant investment in public lands, yeah, it is, and it's, it's a good question. It's something that we talked about for years. You know, Osprey has been a member of the conservation alliance for 16 years, and so it's been an important part of kind of who, who we are, an important kind of part of our kind of our philanthropic, kind of giving strategy. Unknown Speaker 9:53 You know, we've spent a lot of time in the past, I'd say five years, just really trying to to refine. Unknown Speaker 10:00 In what our approach is to kind of philanthropy. And I think, you know, two years ago, we we've redefined our pillars, and those that's conservation, access and community, and community is about where we live, work and play. So that's the Four Corners region, that's Cortez. And you know, some of our needs within this region, or maybe a little bit different, or can flex outside of those two main pillars of conservation and access. But to us, we've looked at conservation and access like if we're saying access to us means more people outside. That has to go hand in hand with conservation. So it's a it's this idea of responsible recreational development, responsible conservation, Unknown Speaker 10:41 and as we, as we did that, we we narrowed our focus on conservation and said we're going to put all of our or most of our eggs in the conservation Alliance basket. And in order to do that, we we just had a lot of conversations internally about how important the relationships been Unknown Speaker 11:00 and and not only the relationship, but the impact that we've seen that comes directly from working locally with grassroots organizations who've happened to be grantees of the Alliance, like Dolores, river boating advocates and bears, there's partnership and other groups like that. And so we've been able to see, like on the ground level as a brand, the impact that the alliance has not just in the form of, you know, here's here's a grant and some dollars. Good luck out there. You know, it's also been in the form of, we go to DC and we see the the the weight of the full industry put behind these priority campaigns. And it's just made a lot of sense as a brand. We know that our our dollars, can go a lot farther by kind of working with an organization like conservation Alliance, and so that's, that's really how we kind of came to it. And, you know, as we've grown as a business, so too has our we've kind of just said internally, like our commitment has to grow as well, you know, proportionally to how we've grown as a business. And so we were finally able to make that step, I think, two years ago, and I think is probably one of my most proud moments of of my career, is being able to kind of, you know, get that across the finish line. It took a couple of years of working with, you know, the development team at TCA, and a couple of years of pitching it internally. So Vince, you mentioned DC Unknown Speaker 12:28 and as Bill sort of touched on in the beginning of the episode. As we record this, the Senate is moving closer and closer to the Unknown Speaker 12:38 procedures that will amend and eventually approve a budget reconciliation bill. And a big part of that conversation around the bill has been Senator Mike Lee's efforts to include language that would sell off millions of acres of public lands, although currently, as of you know Friday morning, he's hitting a number of procedural and political hurdles. Unknown Speaker 13:01 I wonder if, if y'all can tell us about how the conservation Alliance has engaged in this conversation. Yeah, that's a good question. So you know, the public land sell off issue is a priority for us and for our businesses and everything. I mean, going back to our theory of change, that businesses rely on healthy landscapes and everything from Osprey to all the other businesses that are in our alliance. And so for us, it was, this was a non starter. This this issue, bringing public lands off into budget reconciliation. And so we've been very active. A lot of our work has been what we sometimes call the inside game, right? So we've been, we've been in DC. We were there right when the house was looking at reconciliation bill, and on their side, we've been making calls. We've been having virtual lobbying events with specific senators, specific House of Representative members, and getting our businesses engaged. And just yesterday, we sent out a letter with over 100 businesses that signed on, and we sent it to Congress to say there are 100 businesses representing, I think it's around $20 billion of annual revenue that are adamantly opposed selling off public lands in the reconciliation process. And so we've been pushing on all these things. We've been writing, op eds, we're doing paid media, all the tactics, but what we're really trying to do is to make sure that we're really focused on saying, this is the business voice for conservation. And yes, there are individuals out there, there are user groups out there that are very vocal. And I'm so thankful for all that. Where we found that our our our efforts are really making a lot of change is saying, Hey, this is an economic argument that selling off public lands will pose significant threats to an economy, right? And so it's we keep pushing on that narrative and hoping that in we. Unknown Speaker 15:00 We know this is sticking, is that with our decision makers, they care about economy, they care about jobs, they care about their local constituents and what the economic value that they're bringing to back to their state. And so we've been really pushing hard on that narrative, acutely to this issue, but also more broadly, really trying to change the narrative about the economic vitality of our public lands. You know, beyond the structure of the Alliance itself, you all set up or a part of the brands for public lands effort, which is a slightly larger tent, meaning it extends to companies that may or may not be a part of the Alliance. And it got me thinking about if and how much the general support of having public lands has become, I don't know, partisan, to use a word for it. To me, public lands have always been bipartisan or non partisan, but these days, you know, is there anything that hasn't been made partisan? And it got me thinking about, oddly enough, basketball during COVID. Like so many folks, I love the trip down memory lane with the last dance documentary The you know, the 90s Chicago Bulls Michael Jordan, you know. And there was this point in that arc where Michael dealt with significant blowback for not endorsing Harvey Gantt, a black Democrat running against an openly racist Jesse Helms in his home state of North Carolina. And Michael was quoted as saying, quote, Republicans buy sneakers too, referencing his obviously deep relationship with a brand, in that case, Nike. Unknown Speaker 16:30 So my point, I guess, is, in today's climate, is there any pause among these brands for standing up for public lands and in boardrooms, I mean, for pushing back against rampant energy development on the public estate, because some group might try to paint it as partisan. I mean, I'm just curious, is that actually tricky territory, or am I overthinking it? I can jump in from the brand perspective, because, you know, they we have these conversations. I guess we actually don't really have a whole lot of these conversations, because it's, you know, it's in Ospreys DNA. This is something public lands is something, something we have stood for since, you know, we're going on 50, or this is our 51st year as a brand. And you know, the brand has always stood behind public lands efforts, and so it at this point, I think our customer expects it. And if there are customers of ours who are surprised that we're standing up for public lands, they haven't been paying attention, you know, because we that's just the stance that we've had for a long time. It's important to our business. It's important to our customers. It's important for us in a unique way. We're based in a very remote region of Southwest Colorado, where in Cortez, Colorado, you know, we've long said that the public lands surrounding us, or frankly, like, that's our main retention tool, you know, we don't have, you know, restaurants and, I mean, we have restaurants at Cortez, but, you know, we don't necessarily have the nightlife that, you know, a Denver, DC, Portland, other kind of hotbeds of industry have, but we do have access to incredible public lands. That's where we that's where we test our products. It's how we recruit people to our region. And so for us, it's important for a lot of reasons. And so in this case, we don't we. It's not really a conversation of, should we stand up? Are we going to upset the wrong people, etc? It's it's important to us. I think the other thing has been interesting, and I, you know, Unknown Speaker 18:22 I'm and we're still kind of like seeing how this all plays out. But I think in this case, what I'm hopeful for, and this is just my optimism, is that Unknown Speaker 18:33 this public land sell off issue has really struck a chord on both sides of the aisle in ways that constituents on, you know, both sides are really Unknown Speaker 18:46 they've ruffled some feathers, and there's a lot of pushback from, you know, hunters and anglers and grazers and all of these different groups and user groups that I'm, you know, I'm optimistic that maybe this is a point in history we can look back and say public lands are actually bipartisan. You know this, this was an instance where enough people stood up to say, this is not. This is this is not. This is non starter. Unknown Speaker 19:12 Well, I'll add a comment there too, Bill. And first of all, you, I think you were alluding to the fact that basketball is not political, but I'm a die hard Detroit Pistons fan, and so I'm sorry about Michael Jordan there, but I'm bad boys from the 80s. That's my that's my allegiance, man. But back to public lands. So I was on a on a panel recently with Mark Deming from NRS, and we were talking about the risk associated with advocacy and without sticking your neck out there from a brand side of things. And he made a really good point. And he said, you know, we we tend to overestimate the risk of saying something and underestimate the risk of not saying something. And I thought that was a really good point, that into Vince, what Vince was just saying. And. Unknown Speaker 20:00 That public lands, if you look at it, it is actually non partisan, right? There's the Colorado College polls come out every year, and the sentiment with the public for protecting public lands and waters is always 7580 90% right? It's like the large swath of Americans really appreciate and value our public lands. And so if you can start to pull that back a little bit into think about how a company takes action, if you can start to bring those numbers in there, then you can kind of get an alignment on terms of, you know, is there risk in doing this? Is a risk in not doing this? And I think that's, that's the really good question to put in there. And I think historically so I worked at rivian and Patagonia, two very mission driven companies, but also privately held, publicly held, very different risk profiles when we think about things. But you know, as we would have those conversations internally, we would eventually kind of get to this place of saying, hey, there's a greater risk with without saying something, and then we're gonna go and we're gonna stick to our values. And I think those brands who are jumping in with the brands for public lands coalition are those ones who have made that calculus, who have done it for a variety of reasons, and are adamant about protecting our public lands. And I'm hoping that this is a watershed moment where we can really lean into the fact that this is an American issue, protecting our public lands. It's not Republican, it's not Democrat, it's not tree hugger, it's not what other label you wanna put on people. But this is an American issue, and we need to protect our heritage. Paul, it's interesting. You mentioned values and Vince, you mentioned DNA, because as you're talking, it's like occurring to me that I think we're approaching like I I was gonna say I don't want to speak for Bill, but I absolutely do want to speak for Bill, especially if it prevents him from talking. But I think Bill and I approach this like a position that's like, well, you can't give in to the politicians, like you can't start thinking the way they think. But you're you guys are actually also saying yes that, but also you also can't give into the way your customers might think. You have to stay true to yourself. And in doing that it, I think it actually demonstrates that value system that you're talking about, that backbone, and I think people respect that, maybe even if they don't necessarily align with the value 100% so that that's something that never occurred to me before. So I appreciate y'all sort of revealing that, yeah, you know one thing that I can just going back, Bill to your question about, Unknown Speaker 22:30 you know, brands, are we having these conversations in our, you know, in our boardrooms and with our leadership teams about, you know, how and where we stand up and from a brand perspective, you know, we're pack experts. We're not policy experts at Osprey. I'm just speaking specifically for Osprey. You know, we, we like to think we keep our finger on the pulse of of things. But the reason, just going back to why stepping up our relationship with conservation alliances, because these are they've also been there for us as a sounding board. So, you know, before we stick our neck out. You know, there have been multiple times we'll call Paul or, you know, call Rebecca, or call Katie, or call, you know, anyone from the conservation Alliance, and just say, hey, you know this is the issue. Can you give us a little bit of counsel on what's what's going on, who's for it, who's against it, what's happening? And they've just been such a great resource again, because we're pack experts, like, we know how to make great packs, and we do want to stand for public lands, but to have that, that kind of resource, like the Alliance, that you can reach out to at any point, and they're so in tune with with, you know, both sides of any issue that we may be stepping into, it's been a great like just resource for us, speaking of good counsel, Unknown Speaker 23:46 years ago, the conservation Alliance played a big role in the campaign on which Bill and I were engaged to protect certain landscapes on Tennessee's Cherokee National Forest Is wilderness, and that role came with policy and communications expertise and some financial assistance, but also with a lot of cultural cache. Unknown Speaker 24:10 And you must think about this a lot inside the halls of the conservation Alliance. You know, I I'm sort of like an IR constructivist on this issue, on the power of culture to shape society, decision making, etc. Is that sort of soft power in your heads when you're making a decision about how to engage whatever political football is being kicked around that day? Unknown Speaker 24:35 100% I mean, I think, you know, when we think about the tactics, you know, just things like writing op eds, things like calling your senators, everything there, sometimes you get caught up in in the what, and you sometimes forget about the why. And I think that's super important as we approach any any issue we want to be super sensitive to what. Unknown Speaker 25:00 Are the cultural dynamics around a place, but also, what are the places that we can feel like we can bring some additional value to those cultures, right? So if it's if it's in Tennessee, it's if it's on the western slope of Colorado, you know, we we can't be coming in with an agenda that isn't going to be received or isn't also aligned with, actually, a lot of the values of the of the communities in those places. So, you know, when we go to work on the Dolores River, for example, and I keep saying that because, you know, Osprey has been so involved in that, you know, we need to go into those communities and understand what is the culture? There's grazing there, there's mining there, there's also boating, there's also mountain biking. How do we Unknown Speaker 25:40 how do we use conservation as a cultural pivot point to bring people together? And I think that's the one, the one nugget that we want to keep pushing together is that they're all different cultures in all these communities, right? There's different political ideologies, there's different recreational ideologies, but there can there be a unifying narrative there that pulls the culture together, that pulls the people together. And we do believe that is conservation, because you can use these protected public lands for so many uses, and it pulls us together. Yeah, it's a great way to put it. You know, often when we talk politics, we talk about the third rail. You know what rail you don't touch, but maybe actually we need to be creating that fourth rail, or maybe it's the line over the electric trolley system in a city, right? It's the rail you do want to touch because it's what gives you power. And it feels like in this moment where public lands have been at risk from a variety of different angles, making conservation public lands a cultural moment that bridges, sort of some of the other divides we're fighting through is important. You know, the the Alliance should be celebrated for standing for the places their customers recreate. And you've been part of some amazing victories. You know, Andrew's mentioned, you were part of our victory, of getting the Tennessee Wilderness Act passed in 2018 are there other victories and efforts that you've had recently that really stand out for you guys. Or maybe it's just like, maybe you're always head down on the fight that's still ahead of us, but like, just, there's been some amazing victories. Unknown Speaker 27:10 Yeah, there have been, you know, we've been, we've been heads down on a lot of work for the past years. I think if you look back to last year in particular, there was a huge victory up in Alaska with the d1 land protections, 28 million acres. And that was a really cool campaign, because we talk about culture. You know, this was a the protection of, yes, recreational value and biodiversity and flora and fauna, but is also the protection of the culture of so many tribal communities up there for subsistence living. And I think that was an amazing opportunity to not just protect huge amount of land, but also protect the way of life. And so that was, that was a huge, huge win that we're, we're so thankful happened. I mean, we're certainly, you know, eyes wide open on what could happen to that now. But also we've been, you know, we were very, very glad for all the victories we had on the national monuments for the past bit, and osprey was a key founder in our mobilizing for monuments campaign, where we saw some amazing protections out in the bajma Jo itakumene National Monument and so many other landscapes. So we're, you know, we're, we're thankful for those, those wins, certainly when we're working in and we're digging deep on them right now too, and making sure that we're going to keep them protected. So I think that's, that's been a small victory. And I think when we think about the like the the other victory, which is the narrative building, I think that is, Unknown Speaker 28:48 that is equally important, because you know, what we're seeing right now is just a continued unfortunate ping pong of protections or rollbacks or whatever it is. And I think that is, that is the fault of the environmental community for not actually building a strong, robust narrative around the value of public lands and waters, and not pulling in the right people, not pulling in the right talking points. And we've got to get more refined if we're gonna not find our selves in this place into 468, years from now. And so I think we're starting to see that narrative change a little bit. And I think this public land sell off is to what Vince's point. It's a, it's a it's a great potential. Maybe it's a watershed moment for this to happen, but we've got to get better, you know, we've got to build a narrative that is unifying this and I think that's equally as important as protecting in the landscapes that we've been working hard on. Very, very, very well, said Paul, I want to endorse that like 100% I hope people were paying attention. We've done a lot of talking about the federal government and federal land, but I guess I want to ask you guys real quickly about any engagement you may have had with all these new. Unknown Speaker 30:00 Offices of outdoor recreation that are popping up in different states. And, you know, I think less than half the states have them right now, but you see one, you know, almost every other month you see, like, North Carolina's added one. Arkansas added one. I know, like Montana and Colorado were early on the list. And these, these state offices were established to promote and support the outdoor recreation industry and its associated economic, health and environmental benefits. And I'm just curious if y'all have had much interaction with those state offices and how it's gone so far. Unknown Speaker 30:31 Yeah, I can, I mean, I can speak a little bit to just, you know, osprey is has been engaged with the Colorado outdoor recreation office. And, you know, we sit in on some of the round tables and discussions on, you know, just what, what is the what resources do they have, what resources they are providing, they definitely help, kind of us form a stronger narrative about Colorado specifically, and the impacts that the outdoor recreation economy has, you know, we have, we have some political leaders who are supportive of that and very friendly to that, and have been. And so, you know, we also make sure that through that office, we're encouraging them to continue the Support for Outdoor Recreation and public lands, you know, protections, and you know, what's been. It's interesting from a from our perspective as a grant brand, who's who's a bit more, who's obviously more established, as you know, those offices are also extremely important for, as Paul mentioned, kind of the the smaller, the guiding groups and the organizations who are the startups who are looking for resources, you know, they've helped quite a few, you know, Colorado startup brands get off the ground through the resources that they can provide. So they, you know, not only provide just a talking point of, here's the octo recreation impact. They're actually providing resources for for new, up and coming brands to to get off the ground and find support, to to kind of get to a place where they can be sustainable. Unknown Speaker 32:03 It's been awesome to see these, these outdoor business alliances, spring up right the tier point Enders are they're coming up every every few weeks, which is great. And I know last week we were in Nashville for the switchback trade show in the soban network, had a had a meeting the day before where they're pulling them all the outdoor business state, outdoor business alliances together to kind of align behind a common policy platform, which I think is gonna be so great that everyone's got their own priorities, but there are some larger narratives that they push together. And so I think it's awesome. We've been working with them a little bit and hoping to do so more into Vince's point, the resources and the way that they can get Unknown Speaker 32:48 bring in small businesses is so important right now, you're right. Yes, there's always opportunities for the big companies to network, but we really need those small retailers. We need those small businesses to be active in this campaign, because your local voice, your local constituency, plugging them in is just as important as getting loud from a national perspective. Unknown Speaker 33:11 Wow, this has been such a rich discussion, guys and really, thank you for coming on Vince. I just want to say not just thanks to Osprey for for your support of of these efforts, in support of the conservation Alliance I showed you before, but getting getting ready for a trip to Alaska, I've pulled out, you know, I've pulled out my, you know, my Stratus 24 and my Kestrel 48 Unknown Speaker 33:34 getting ready for a backcountry adventure and Osprey has been with me for a long time, and it just almost fills me with a sense of pride to know that a brand that I've been wearing because of the quality of the brand is also making sure those experiences are there for me. And that's the whole point of having this conversation with you guys, right? Like the work of the Alliance, the work of the brands that are part of the Alliance, the larger network of brands that have stepped forward with the brands for public lands, just really thanks to you guys and appreciate you coming on. Unknown Speaker 34:04 Yeah, we really appreciate this. You guys approach this work with so much thoughtfulness and like, I've enjoyed being a partner of yours over the years, and I look forward to it for years to come. So thanks a Unknown Speaker 34:16 lot. Thank you. It's been great to connect with you and build that backpack looked a little ragged. So, yeah, keep it going. Unknown Speaker 34:24 It's awesome to see how many stories are probably in that things. But it's cool to see you. It's cool to see the people can wear where their values right when you align with a brand who's sticking their neck out right now, you're you're speaking volumes when you wear that jacket or put that pack on, yeah? So yeah, what I put on that Kestrel 48 particularly, which I've had for a long time, maybe it's a downfall of the brand, is the quality is so good that I haven't replaced it in a while. But, like, I've used that pack to maintain hundreds of miles of trail. So it doesn't just have a rain jacket tucked in, tucked in it. I mean, it's had aluminum wedges for saw work in the back. Unknown Speaker 35:00 Country. And, yeah, there's a metaphor in there somewhere, you know, or out about that giving back So Vince, thanks. Thanks to you and and osprey as a as an outfit for what you do to support all of this. And thanks to both of you coming on Awesome. Well, thanks for that, Bill, and thanks Sanders. And it's seeing packs like that to fill us with joy. And it like, you know, we also get kind of caught in our place with our head down and we're just cranking on the next season and the next season and and, you know, this packs like that and stories like that remind us why we do what we do as well. And so, yeah, thanks for that. Well, we have been talking to Vince mazuka from Osprey and Paul Hendricks, the executive director of the conservation Alliance, such a great conversation to our listeners. We have a couple requests. One, recommend us to your friends, hit, subscribe, give us a rating, you know, all the usual podcast stuff. But we also want to hear from you, what you like, who we should have on, or a topic you think we should add. Questions you have for us, you know, coming up, Anders and I are going to sit down with some of your questions, and we're going to reflect on the first half of the year and the start of the wild idea, and we're going to record that conversation for a future episode. So be a part of it. Fire away with your questions. You can do that on our website, the wild idea.com using our Contact Us tab, or ask it on our socials. We want to make this a community project, a community of lovers of wild places. So join in. Hopefully. Anders survives that conversation with me, because we are going to be in a wild place, and if he pushes my buttons too much, Unknown Speaker 36:33 we may be looking for another co host. I don't just hoping to make it through the night with all that snoring. Unknown Speaker 36:39 Well, thanks for y'all joining us on this episode of the wild idea, and we will see you on down the trail. The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Bren Russell at pod lab. Digital support by Holly wilkoshevsky at daypack digital. Our theme music, Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John skeehan. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast. If you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you I'm. Transcribed by https://otter.ai