Eagle Creek sold-off

Good news, although I probably have a lifetime supply of luggage and accessories at this point, mostly EC.

Thanks for the link! A thoroughly written article, good interview quotes. Eagle Creek fans hope for the best for Travis who, according to the article, is the sole employee for now, working out of Steamboat Springs CO, and he hopes to have 30 employees in a year. Good luck, cowboy,

Cool interview — I hope he can do well. Thank you for sharing

Yes! And bring back Jessica Dobson!

Can we hope for USA manufactured products?

That's great news - thanks for posting the interview!

@ Sun-baked in Florida-

We can hope for them, but the same capitalism that allows us to afford traveling the globe means we won't get them.

Can we hope for USA manufactured products?

Nice idea but, highly unlikely.

Besides setting up a factory to make the finished item, you'd also need to support a domestic or, at-least a North America supply chain for raw materials (refinery for raw materials, fabric mill, fabric dye, stitch thread, plastic buckles, snaps, zippers, hook n'loop, etc...all are separate factories); then you'd need to find workers who are willing to work 5-6 days/week, at 8-12hrs/day doing 1-2 tasks that entire time. Then once you find those workers, you need to train them up to a standard that can compete on a world-wide level.

I too would like to see domestic manufacturing return but, there's a LOT of things that need to change in order to get companies to put out the necessary capitol to make that happen.

Zcorsair,
I hear what you are saying. I think the USA could get back into making fabrics and stitching again. We make shoes; we make blue jeans (or, we did); we can regain manufacturing. We need to manufacture more!

There are several USA-based travel and outdoor goods makers. Most are tiny operations selling buy-it-for-life products for micro-sized markets. Also many manufacturers that are proud of their social responsibility records who maintain safe factories and pay fair wages and benefits such as Osprey.
I happen to like the products and the philosophy that keeps Seattle-based Tom Bihn busy.

Bogiesan,
I’m good with osprey and “fair trade” type businesses - any businesses that treat their workers decently.
This pandemic has revealed some vulnerable areas for the USA - like the manufacturing of face masks and disposable gloves for medical workers, microchips for cars, car batteries for hybrids, medications, etc.. We need to keep “essential” manufacturing in the USA. I’m for lots of manufacturing and jobs here in the USA.

I buy Tom Bihn and Osprey bags almost exclusively for these reasons.

+1
Tom Bihn and Osprey