Re: [Paddlewise] Early Winters Reminiscing

Peter Treby wrote:
>>>>>>>By chance, I was sitting in a bar in Chamonix
one day, and noticed an American alpinist on the neighbouring table poring
over an Early Winters catalogue. I recklessly suggested that Early Winters
should stick to its core business and stay away from gadgets and gimmicks.
He then revealed that he was employed by EW, and was responsible for the
catalogue and gimmicks! Score zero for tact and diplomacy. Any
relation?<<<<<<,

I'm not sure who that might have been. Two possibilities are Bill Nicolai
(the founder) and Ron Zimmerman the ad man. Ron was probably the guy
responsible for keeping the company alive by selling gimmicks with hype to
their huge mailing list when the core backpacker/climber clientele had
peaked and the backpacking boom petered out in the late 1970's (when
interest rates also shot up to over 20% with the raging inflation). A lot of
outdoor companies went under or had serious difficulties back then. No, it
was definitely the million dollar debt that killed EW, the sales of junk
were only a symptom of a company desperately trying to survive its death
throws. During the inflation they were having to print new catalogs every
six months (a big expense) just to be able to raise the prices to keep pace
with the rapidly rising wholesale costs for the items they sold. Even after
just six months their profit margins were seriously eroded. Bill was a
climber but I don't think Ron was (or wasn't very serious about it if he
was).
One other very likely possibility of who you may have met was a friend Cam
and I used to WW paddle with some who was traveling and climbing around
Europe in the employ of Early Winters looking for new products for them to
sell. He had previously been the retail store manager before moving to this
"dream" job. Once he found a great pair of wool socks in Europe but he
didn't think they would be a good seller for EW because they would have had
to retail them at $7.00 or $8.00 (when most wool socks were less than half
that). Ron took that as a challenge, ordered them, repackaged them in a
fancy box, named them "Millionaire's Socks" and priced them at $20.00 a
pair. If that paddling friend is who you met you may have met just him
shortly before his dream job became a nightmare. He died climbing the Eiger,
if I recall correctly, (I am also spacing on his name right now). I believe
he was climbing with a local guide and both died in an avalanche..

Matt Broze
www.marinerkayaks.com
***************************************************************************
PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed
here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire
responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author.
Submissions:     PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net
Subscriptions:   PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net
Website:         http://www.paddlewise.net/
***************************************************************************