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Marmot History
 In the summer of 1973, University of California Santa Cruz students Eric Reynolds and Dave Huntley made prototypes of down products in their dorm room in Santa Cruz. Their first products were a down vest, a sweater and a parka and, later, three down sleeping bags.
Along with Tom Boyce, the two rented a 100 year old stone building near downtown that used to be a grocery store, and opened a rental and retail shop under the name of Marmot Mountain Works. They taught cross-country skiing in the winter to get by. Thus, in the spring of 1974, Marmot the company was born.
Eric met Joe Tanner of W.L. Gore & Assoc., Inc. in Elkton, Maryland in 1976. Eric was one of the firsts in the US to see a new concept in outdoor performance fabrication: Gore-Tex. He was intrigued and, within a couple weeks, had sewn prototype sleeping bags in the new Gore-Tex fabric for field testing. He and Dave proceeded to spend the next seven nights in a commercial frozen meat locker comparing bags with and without the Gore-Tex fabric. Then they tested the bags sleeping under fire sprinklers. They liked what they saw. They ordered another 100 yards of fabric and were in business selling Gore-Tex fabric bags.
The Marmot team immediately changed everything in the line to Gore-Tex fabrications. Marmot designed the first Gore-Tex bivy sack. Marmot designed a Gore-Tex, single fabric layer, mountaineering tent: the Taku. Marmot is the oldest customer of Gore in the world outdoor market.
Marmot grew from 7 dealers in 1974 to 11 in 1977. Specialized, knowledgeable, trained retailers were always part of the original equation.
Marmot has grown since 1977. However, the company has not changed that much in twenty-nine years. It is still all about the highest quality performance product.
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Arcteryx
