Getting it in gear | Hyperlite Mountain Gear carries Biddeford entrepreneur to new heights
Photo/Tim Greenway
Mike St. Pierre, founder of Hyperlite Mountain Gear in Biddeford, tests his ultra-light outdoor products by hiking 18,000 miles with them
With 22 pounds of gear strapped to her back — not including food, water and fuel — Christi “Deva” Holmes felt her knees ache on a big mile day on a downhill portion of the Appalachian Trail. But two months in, on June 1, the Machias resident was able to cut her load in half by trading in her L.L.Bean backpack and gear for new products by Hyperlite Mountain Gear.
“I met Deva at Trail Days in Damascus, Va., and realized she’d be a perfect candidate to demonstrate the difference a lighter base weight can make,” says Mike St. Pierre, founder and CEO of HMG in Biddeford. Now AT hikers and others can follow Holmes online as she completes her trek in her new role as company spokesperson.
Through word-of-mouth marketing and the 7,500 hits per month on the company blog, HMG sales increased by 40% since June 2010, when the company launched with nine products sold exclusively on its website, www.hyperlitemountaingear.com. Already outgrowing its 1,500-square-foot design and manufacturing space in Biddeford’s North Dam Mill, HMG now sells and ships 85 products to all corners of the globe and expects to double sales by this time next year.
“Last fall was rough — nobody knew who we were,” says St. Pierre, of Kennebunk. “But we got big press this spring and moved into the mill in Biddeford.”
Backpacker Magazine’s latest Gear Guide recently named HMG’s Windrider Ultralight Pack ($255) the Best Ultralight Pack and its Echo II Ultralight Shelter ($595) the Lightest Shelter.
HMG is among a growing number of companies manufacturing hiking tarps, shelter systems, backpacks, stuff sacks and accessories from high-performance, waterproof and ultra-light Cuben Fiber. Cuben Fiber is a non-woven laminated fabric at least 50% lighter and 90% stronger than traditional backpack material, such as Kevlar. The pricey composite laminate discovered in the 1990s was originally used to make yachting and sailing fabrics.
Only a few companies were using Cuben Fiber to make tents or backpacks when St. Pierre, an avid hiker himself, began to make his first shelter equipment in 2009.
“I’d hike 30 to 40 miles a weekend. I’d look for gear at the big stores like L.L.Bean, Eastern Mountain Sports, and besides a few products that pushed the envelope, the designs were still from the 1970s and 1980s,” says St. Pierre.”Then I read about this high-tech material that is like tissue paper, waterproof and can’t rip.”
A chef at New York City restaurant Prime Meats at the time, St. Pierre saw a business opportunity and went for it.
“I placed an order for several hundred dollars of Cuben Fiber online,” he says. “I took the doors off the closet of my small Brooklyn apartment to make table space and rounded up every sewing machine my family had.”
When he realized a sewing machine wasn’t going to cut it for a commercial product, St. Pierre quit his restaurant job to relocate to Kennebunk, where he has family connections, and created his first shelter prototype out of a mom-and-pop manufacturing facility in Silver Lake, N.H. He tested it by putting 18,000 miles on it, the same standard he used for subsequent gear.
St. Pierre invested $15,000 into Hyperlite Mountain Gear, then attracted $300,000 from private investors. Now he’s beginning to break even. He employs six, including Holmes, who is still working her way up to Maine with her lighter load. Having Holmes reporting from the trail “has been quite positive for us,” says St. Pierre of the growing hits to the company blog. And she is happy as well.
“My knees stopped aching,” she says.
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