Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2019 - 34

Feature .02

"Retail in general is really fucking boring," says
Will Hutchinson, who co-founded the Marin
County surf and skate shop Proof Lab back in 2004.
He and I are hunkered down in low-to-theground camp chairs in Proof Lab's second shop,
Proof Lab Station, on a blustery early May afternoon. As customers mill around the specialty
outdoor store filled with high-end brands like
Filson and Stanley, Hutchinson, 39, explains
his and his partner Nate McCarthy's antidote
to his bold proclamation.
"What we've done, our business model, came
out of a dissatisfaction with the status quo in retail. Even with a store like Patagonia-you go in
there and you just buy Patagonia. You can't do
anything," says Hutchinson. "There's nothing
actually happening. You can't go anywhere or
learn anything. So we wanted to push the envelope and create something different. We wanted a business that has a larger mission."
Pan back from the corner we occupied. Proof
Lab Surf Shop and Proof Lab Station sit on a
windy corner just off of Highway 1 in what's
sometimes referred to as the Wild West of Mill
Valley. ("The main reason is because it's unincorporated," says Hutchinson.) A gravel parking lot stretches between the two buildings,
and the temperature, I'm told, is almost always
10 degrees colder than the more balmy central Marin. The sounds of machinery clatter
from behind a fence that sits in back of Proof
Lab Station. The wind is relentless, as is the
morning sunshine. There's no shade to speak
of, even when you're sitting on the back porch
of the quaint Equator Coffees & Teas, which sits
between Proof Lab Surf Shop and Proof Lab
Station. But you can find a bit of calm when you
walk just a few steps past Proof Lab Station, a
little beyond Mill Valley Potter's Studio, a skidge
past Studio 4 Art, and into the CNL Native
Plant Nursery (all sub-tenants of Proof Lab).
Inside it's just as advertised. Every plant, every starter is native to Northern California. It's
also rustic and beautiful, with enormous driftwood sculptures (a 10-foot-high rearing horse,
a glowering eagle) and one-of-a-kind wrought
iron pieces (a giant jellyfish and a birdcage, door
open, with a full feeder). Not long ago, the nursery's owner, Dan Dufficy, installed an aquaponics system that uses fish poop to fertilize veggies.

34 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Summer 2019

And the nursery manager, Ian Johnson, just
put the finishing touches on a cool, river stonebedecked water feature that also incorporates
stepped iron sheets (and subtly drowns out the
near-constant traffic noise on Highway 1).
The nursery will eventually lead to a beer
garden McCarthy and Hutchinson are building out back (hence the building noise). "We
don't necessarily want to serve alcohol, but we
want a place where people can congregate,"
Hutchinson says. When it's done, the Proof
Lab consortium of businesses, which includes
the two original Proof Lab shops (both owned
by Hutchison and McCarthy), plus the three
already mentioned (owned by tenants), plus
two others that operate in the buildings on the
60,000-square-foot lot, will complete the Proof
Lab tiny universe.
If this is sounds confusing, it should-until
you hear Hutchinson say that after running
the original Proof Lab surf store, which he and
McCarthy opened as college grads in 2004, he
went to graduate school for an MBA in sustainable management. There, he learned about
sustainable business's "basic buckets: people,
planet, and profit." His interest sprung from
his fear of our environmental future. "I think
the younger you are, the more freaked out you
are," he says. "Because you're going to be living
through [the negative impacts]. The idea of the
world being the same as it is now is totally gone,
and the uncertainty alone is as bad as the thing
you might be fearing." He examined different
careers that could help battle the problem but
realized that instead of selling solar panels, he
and McCarthy had a store, and through it, he
knew they could make a unique contribution.
Once back in Mill Valley, he re-joined
McCarthy in running Proof Lab at its second
location. He'd spent his final semester building and implementing the business plan for
Proof Lab's big expansion. Then, the day after graduation, they opened their doors, with
several new sub-tenants consisting largely of
friends and acquaintances they knew wanted
to start or grow businesses with a focus on sustainability. Now what they have is a place where

you can grab a cup of coffee in the morning (at
Equator), drop your kid at a skate lesson (on the
8-foot-high, 1,500-square-foot ramp inside
Proof Lab Surf Shop, and under the instruction of Shredder Skate Camps), drop another
kid at music lessons, or take one yourself (with
Magic West Music School)," and, say, shop for
a sweet Roxy sundress, or, better yet, a custom
surfboard that you can then use to go abroad
and "have an experience with another person
where you're vibing out and not saying a word,"
says McCarthy.
During that same day in the Proof Lab tiny
universe, the owners will gently instruct you
on more important environmental issues. In
2011, Hutchinson had a biodiesel pump installed, and you can grab your share of prepaid-for fresh, sustainable, local seafood from
the cooler outside of Proof Lab Station with a
sign that reads, "Shares in this cooler are for
members only. If you are not a member yet,
JOIN US." Equator Coffees & Teas is a certified B-Corporation, a designation for businesses that meet the highest standards of verified social and environmental performance,
public transparency, and legal accountability
to balance profit and purpose. The plants in
CNL Nursery are purchased from farms in
northern California, they're chemical-free,
and they're native to the region. And the skate
camps, surf instruction (Big Dog Surf Camp),
potter's studio, and Robin Hood Adventures
(after-school surf lessons) all fill the "people"
bucket in the three buckets of sustainability.
So do the three skate parks that Hutchinson
and McCarthy have helped build in Mill Valley
and surrounding communities. They've filled
(and keep filling) the "planet" bucket by, for
one, working tirelessly with other local businesses to help Marin County to become the
first in California to provide 100 percent sustainable energy to anyone wanting to purchase it . "That's a neat grassroots thing," says
Hutchinson, "that now other counties are piggybacking on." But at the end of the day, Proof
Lab Surf Shop and Proof Lab Station (as well as
a third Proof Lab retail store, in San Rafael, five

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2019

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