From tiny acorns ...

Seattle flagship store

When President Obama selected Sally Jewell, president and CEO of REI, to be his new Secretary of the Interior, the landmark Seattle institution received another burst of national attention.

I say "Seattle institution," but that betrays my parochial perspective.  Recreational Equipment, Inc. (REI) is one of the nation's leading outdoor recreational equipment retailers.  REI has approximately 125 stores in 31 states.  It has 11.6 million "members," and annual sales of $1.8 billion (2011).  It sells both brand name merchandise, and some products manufactured under its own name. 

The flagship store in Seattle (pictured above) is a virtual temple to outdoors equipment of every sort -- not just camping and climbing gear, but clothing, ski and snowshoe equipment, bicycles and cycling equipment, running shoes, kayaks, travel gear, books, virtually anything related to fun in the outdoors -- dominated by a glass tower enclosing a 65-foot climbing rock.

'Twas not always thus.  When I joined REI, it occupied several old, single-floor warehouse buildings on Capitol Hill -- buildings cobbled together to create a commercial maze, somewhat like an old, funky bookstore.  It sold primarily backpacking and climbing gear.  Its formal name was already Recreational Equipment, Inc., but no one called it "REI"; it was simply "the co-op."  It was (and still is) organized as a member-owned cooperative that distributed its net profits to its members annually.  Members still receive an annual distribution, but for years the dividend has been stabilized at ten percent of purchases, regardless of the co-op's profits during the year.

The co-op had been formed in 1938 as a means of providing, at cost, hard-to-find climbing equipment to Seattle area climbers.  By the time I joined, it had expanded its scope, but climbing and backpacking equipment was still by far its primary focus.  Like most members, I took its function as a member-owned cooperative seriously.  When its annual catalog first contained what I felt were unusually flashy ads for skis, rather than simply technical descriptions, I wrote complaining that the purpose of the co-op was to serve the needs of members, not to create needs by advertising. (I received a friendly but noncommittal response.)

Such was my naiveté.  Even non-profit institutions employ real human beings, ambitious types with the human need to preside over greater and greater empires.  Annual profits may remain zero, but the officers' salaries increase as the organization grows larger.  I'm not saying that growth is bad.  REI in its present form serves my own needs, as well as those of others, for products beyond the narrow fields of climbing and backpacking.  But I still lament the loss of a certain purity of purpose and organization that the co-op possessed when I first joined, a certain form of upper middle class socialism, I suppose.

Sally Jewell leads Mt. Rainier climb

REI has been an excellent citizen of Seattle, and a strong promoter of all things good environmentally.  Despite the expansion of its mission statement, it remains run by folks with outdoors interests and an environmental orientation, not by green-shaded bean counters.  Back when I signed up, Jim Whittaker -- the first American to summit Everest -- was the CEO.  Today's CEO, our new Secretary of the Interior, is herself described as a kayaker, climber, and skier.

Time passes.  My REI number is so low that clerks look at me in surprise when I provide it while making a purchase.  That feels a bit awkward, I guess, but it's also a pleasure to have been a member during a large portion of REI's growth from a small local co-op into a giant national institution.