Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020 - 41

in. They envisioned a shop like the Wilderness
Exchange in Berkeley, California, with gear sold
on consignment and closeout.
Sherman had tried, without success, to get a
job at local outdoor shops. Instead, he landed
at the Vermont Teddy Bear company. A year after the camping trip, he found himself in a hotel room in London. "I'd just broken up with my
girlfriend, and I was selling teddy bears," he recalls. With no debt and no family, he decided to
make the gear shop vision a reality.
Sherman opened the store in an 800-squarefoot space on Main Street in 1995, along with
partner Andreas Thompson (who left the business in 1999). It was a two-man operation, but
both new owners wanted to go to the Outdoor
Retailer show, then in Reno ("The gathering
of the tribe," Sherman calls it) and get a hiking trip in. They needed someone to mind the
shop. "I was walking down Church Street, and
they asked me if I wanted a job," says Donohue.
Sherman had seen the young college student in
the shop buying ice-climbing tools.
Sherman printed out an application on the
shop's letterhead. It read simply, "Why should
we hire you?" Donohue's response: He knew
how to work the ancient Phoebus stove OGE
had in a display case. Sherman handed him the
keys, showed him how to keep track of orders
(all on paper) and how to restock-and told
him to make a best guess if he wasn't sure on
prices. "They were desperate," says Donohue,
a New Jersey kid who was, at the time, studying environmental studies at the University of
Vermont's School of Natural Resources.
Donohue gives me a tour of the shop that
lasts three hours. It is sprawling and labyrinthine. Beyond the sales floor are workshops,
tune rooms, offices, breakrooms, hallways, bike
parking, and in-store warehouses packed to
the rafters with product. The floor is concrete
with triangular green recycle symbols stenciled
on, pointing the way to consignment downstairs. Disco balls hang from the ceiling. Shop
dogs roam freely. There's Banshee, a chihuahua
mix rescue dog, and Maggie, a blue border collie who often fakes a limp for reasons unknown.
Donohue has two pit bull rescues, Cedar and
Maple, who snooze on dog beds in his office.
OGE regularly refills the water bowl at the front
door for visiting pups. Employees can bring
their dogs, but they have to behave. No barking
and definitely no peeing on the merchandise.
OGE HAS IMPLEMENTED PROGRAMS TO COLLECTIVELY

encourage employees not to just sell outdoor

AT HOME AT WORK
Katie Wilson, daughter Zinnia
Gagnon, and dog Derby browse
in the consignment area with
Chrissy Bolognino (top).
Customers and staff chat in the
service department (bottom).

OGE has been a triumph of outdoor retail IN VERMONT,

GROWING FROM A CONCEPT FOCUSED ON MAKING OUTDOOR GEAR
ACCESSIBLE THROUGH A SMALL CONSIGNMENT-BASED MODEL to a

48,000-square-foot shop on Burlington's busy pedestrian mall.
gear from an indoor space-but to get outdoors.
After three years of service, OGE employees are
eligible for a sabbatical, with two weeks off (unpaid) for every week of paid vacation they've accrued. And they retain their healthcare benefits.
That morning I'd followed Mel McNell
through the spaghetti bowl network of trails
in the woods at Catamount during a mountain bike clinic put on by the shop. She's OGE's
buyer of footwear, socks, bikes, and bike ac-

cessories, and she's been at the store for nearly a decade. For her sabbatical, McNell and
her girlfriend, Anna Gutwin (who also works
at OGE), are planning a three-month climbing and surfing trip from the coast of Maine to
Kentucky's Red River Gorge.
But how to pay for those epic trips? After
five years of service, employees get a $6,000
Living the Dream grant. The grant can be used
for more than just travel. Brian Jessiman, the

Winter 2020 / OUTDOOR RETAILER 41

Outdoor Retailer - Winter 2020

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