News

American camping and outdoor gear expert Nemo Equipment is continuing on its strong growth curve with more hires planned in 2022 after already nearly doubling its team size in the last two years. The company is planning to appoint six more positions this year and sees the strong growth as a positive indicator of future sales.

When the pandemic hit in Spring 2020, founder and CEO Cam Brensinger made some difficult decisions. One, was drastically reducing the sales forecast for the year and basing all financial assumptions off that new number.

“We decided to base our sales target on what it would take to retain our people and not have to furlough or lay off,” Cam said in an interview with The Voice. “Throughout the pandemic, the one area we didn’t put the brakes on, was product development. We saw a big competitive advantage in being a brand that never took its foot off the gas on product development.”

By the end of 2020, Nemo had kept all of its employees and back paid them any salary cuts that had to be made in the previous months. The company was already growing before the pandemic, and with the boost in the camping market that followed it, Nemo was named one of the fastest growing camping brands in the US outdoor industry by NPD Group.

“We continue to be intentional and thoughtful about our growth,” said Cam. “Creating a sustainable business will allow us to continue to make substantial progress in addressing cli- mate change and advocating for social justice, equity, diversity and inclusivity. Investing in programs to support our manufacturing partners, like Clean By Design; sourcing sustainable materials through partners like bluesign; and auditing our Greenhouse Gas Emissions, wouldn’t be possible without profitable sales margins and a dedicated team to get the work done.”

Darren Josey is Nemo’s vice president of marketing, after being recently promoted from the position of director of marketing. He explains why working with Nemo is such a great fit for him: “I and so many of my BIPOC peers often feel like the moment will never come. However, my time at Nemo has not only fulfilled my personal career goals, but I’m asked, ‘what do you need from us to accommodate more diversity and inclusion?’. As a proud Puerto Rican and Black outdoor enthusiast, I’m personally and professionally motivated to make places where we recreate safer, while also inviting others from the BIPOC community to join in our industry’s corporate HQ’s. One of Nemo’s first real actions in 2022 is committing resources to help more potential and existing outdoor enthusiasts gain inspiration and skills, find places to go and people to go with through our upcoming Adventure Resources page.”

Nemo expects to hire an additional six people in product design and engineering, quality assurance and dealer services. The goal with each hire is to build a thriving team that reflects diversity, protects the places we all depend on for outdoor recreation, and works to create equitable and inclusive access to the outdoors.

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