Celebrating 70 Years of Liberty Mountain
Did you know that Liberty Mountain has been around for 70 years? It is also the 25th anniversary of Gary Heward owning the company! Both the Utah and Pennsylvania locations celebrated with employee parties. We also sat down with Gary to ask him some questions about the past 25 years owning Liberty Mountain.
How did you first hear about Liberty Mountain?
Gary used to work recreation and entertainment, so he has always had a passion for the outdoor industry. An injury unfortunately caused him to leave and get a new, less active job working on budgeting for a company in San Francisco. Over time, he was given more and more tasks, and ended up helping run the business. He was making many decisions for the company and helped sales improve over the 11+ years working there. It eventually came time for Gary to find a new path. He was interested in doing his own thing, and a lot of research led him to finding Liberty Mountain. The opportunity came to buy the company, and he had to take it! 25 years later, Gary is still loving it.
What made you want to buy Liberty Mountain?
Gary describes the outdoor industry as "serendipitous." He has always enjoyed the outdoor industry, and was excited to get back into it. With owning a company, Gary says that you are able to empower people to empower themselves. You have the ability to promote authenticity when creating the company culture. This was all very exciting to Gary, and he has enjoyed establishing this company culture over the years.
What is a day in the life like for you in the office?
There is no typical day in the life for a CEO / owner of a company. Gary describes his day where he has 3 things in mind that he wants to get done, then ends up fixing problems in the moment and having to sacrifice his to-do list. There is a decent amount of unpredictability and being the CEO because there are always hundreds of things to spend time on, and never enough time for it all. Along with any random task and problem solving, he also meets with all of the managers to get updates on each department in the company. Gary says that being good at running a company among the chaos involves being able to figure out what is best for the company to focus on, and getting the employees on board with whatever is most important.
What is your favorite things about Liberty Mountain that have made you stick around for 25 years?
Gary says that the best thing will always be the people he gets to work with. He is so proud to have so many great people sticking around for so long, and he has a lot of respect and care for the Liberty Mountain employees. There are many people at Liberty Mountain that really care about the company, which makes it so great. Gary believes that the outdoor industry is an environment where people can always grow and learn, and he enjoys that there are so many awesome things in the outdoor industry. That makes it pretty easy to stick around in. He's worked hard over the years to find people who have talents, skills, backgrounds, and perspectives that are different than his. Gary believes that diversity increases the strength and breadth of capabilities an organization has. Liberty Mountain tries to have a work culture that allows employees to "play their own music" and personally develop their talents, knowledge, and skills. There have been many employees that started off as teenagers working in the warehouse that are now working in a completely different role. There have also been many other employees who have remade their work experiences and career multiple times over the course of them working at Liberty Mountain. Gary says that the growth of our employees is a key ingredient of the company's success because we are constantly trying to adapt, develop, and grow to meet the rapidly changing markets we face. Gary gave the example that Liberty Mountain is a wholesale company, a distrubution and fullfillment company, and an eCommerce company with an exceptionally good B2B website for a business of our size. We execute strategy driven by our employee capabilities and market demands.
What outdoor activities do you like to do?
"What don't I like to do?" is how Gary responded when we asked him this question. He currently really enjoys backpacking to remote places, biking, and adventure climbing. Gary used to water ski and play basketball too. He says that he has always been active and would much rather be outside doing some fun activity than sitting at home.
What are some of your favorite products that you've gotten from Liberty Mountain?
Gary loves gear, and he especially loves learning about and finding new gear. His favorite kinds of gear to get are tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, and cookware. A piece of gear that he wants to highlight is the Boreal Hot Tent from Peregrine.
Liberty Mountain has grown immensely with Gary’s leadership. We now have two locations, growing the company to be almost 9 times the size we were when Liberty Mountain was bought. With this growth, we have been able to bring on many new positions to make our LM family even stronger! We are very lucky to have a leader like Gary and appreciate all that he does for us. Cheers to an amazing milestone for Gary, and 70 years of Liberty Mountain serving the outdoor industry!