The Cleanest Line

Inside/Outside: Questions for Patagonia’s Chip “Chipper Bro” Bell

Editor’s note: Craig Holloway continues his excellent interview series today with some questions for Patagonia’s receptionist and gatekeeper, Chip Bell. He is the first person you’re likely to meet when visiting the Patagonia campus in Ventura, California. Chip’s warm hospitality and easy smile make you feel right at home. Craig chose to interview Chip for his integrity, company knowledge and devotion to family and friends.



Craig – Are you a Southern California native?

Chip – Yes, I was born in Hollywood and raised in Santa Barbara.

Craig – How did you come to work at Patagonia?

Chip – I had just finished a ten-year tour with the Pro Frisbee® Freestyle circuit and was looking for a job. I heard that Patagonia was hiring, so I applied and they hired me. I was super stoked to find out that the company provided benefits because I was newly married with a baby on the way.

[Above, pictured from left to right – Bud Light Pro Frisbee® Disc team members, Crazy John Brooks, Chipper Bro Bell and Danny Sullivan (with leg warmers), acknowledge the crowd before the start of the 1987 U.S. Open Championship. La Mirada, California. Photo: Scott Starr Collection]

Time On His Feet – A Former Runner Looks Back

by Craig Holloway

I ran my last ultra on a warm, spring day in Wisconsin five years ago.  The course was surprisingly tough – small roller coaster hills come at you like black flies. Crossing the finish line I didn’t feel the exhilaration that I normally do after a race. I chalked it up to burnout and decided to take the rest of the year off. I didn’t run the following year either and eventually packed all my running gear in a box and put it in the garage.

[The serene one, Craig Holloway, trots the Timberline Trail toward Mount Hood, Oregon. From his 2005 field report "Lost on Adrenaline." Photo: Scott Jurek]

Two years went by and I still hadn’t laced up my running shoes. I knew it wasn’t going to happen and decided to stop running – after twenty-six years. It felt like the right thing to do. Now I crew for friends and it’s satisfying to be a part of their race day experience. But I do miss pacing and the responsibilities that come with that role. I’d like to share a few stories about the experiences I had with runners on their 100-mile journeys.

Inside/Outside: Questions for Patagonia’s Retail District Manager Brooks Scott

Editor's note: Craig Holloway continues his excellent interview series today with some questions for Patagonia Retail District Manager, Brooks Scott. Craig chose to interview Brooks for his insightful knowledge and passion for retail. Brooks lives in Chicago with his family and oversees the Patagonia Chicago, St. Paul, Washington DC and Atlanta stores.

Craig – How did you come to work at Patagonia?

Brooks – I grew up wearing Patagonia clothes and love the company. After college I worked as a chef, but when my wife and I decided to start a family I had to change my lifestyle. I love to fly fish and got a job with Trout & Grouse, a Patagonia dealer. While working there I developed good relationships with some folks at Patagonia. When they opened their first store in the Midwest (Chicago) they hired me as manager.

Craig – Were you born and raised in the Midwest?

Brooks – I’m a native Chicagoan and it’s an amazing city. What I really appreciate is the sense of community I feel in the different neighborhoods. There are so many of them, some as small as a few square blocks. My family and I lived in the suburbs, but we missed the city, so we moved back. While we were unpacking our next-door neighbors stopped by with a pie to welcome us to the neighborhood.

[Brooks shoulders the load during an internship with Conservación Patagónica. Valle Chacabuco, Chile. Photo: Brooks Scott Collection]

Inside/Outside: Questions for Patagonia’s T-Shirt Line Manager Cheryl Endo

Cleanest Line contributor Craig Holloway is back with another installment of his employee interview series. Today, Craig speaks with Cheryl Endo, Patagonia's T-Shirt Line Director, about her job inside Patagonia and her interests outside the company.

Craig – What made you decide to come work at Patagonia?

Cheryl – In 1988 I decided to take a break from college and go live in Mammoth and be a ski bum. I was poor and had very little warm gear to withstand a cold winter in the Sierra. A schoolmate said that if you worked at the Patagonia Distribution Center (the old warehouse in Ventura) they’d give you free clothes from the “dog box”. The free clothes were well-worn returns from customers, and I wanted to work at Patagonia so that I could get free gear. I got a job there and hung out with a bunch of folks who loved to spend time in the outdoors.  We’d leave work early Friday afternoons, drive up to Mammoth and ski the entire weekend. We stayed at a Motel 6, eight of us stuffed into one room. Those were really great times and half of those folks still work here.

Craig – What do you value most about the people you work with at Patagonia?

Cheryl – My co-workers have incredible passion for their work. They have a wild-horse spirit, which allows them to work more creatively on design and business projects.

The Retail Life

Before I came to work at Patagonia, I was employed for many years with an outdoor retailer in Evanston, Illinois. It’s the customers I remember best.

There were Gary and Sally, who would drop by to talk about their yearly rafting trip to Montana. Alan liked to hand me pictures of his beloved red ’72 Corvette to look over while he tried on clothes; I remember a red Guide Parka in particular that his girlfriend said looked good on him. The McMahon family always stopped by to shop; Michael and Patrick were two years apart in age, and I’d ask them how school was going and what colleges they planned to attend. Another customer, James, grew up on Chicago’s South Side and was a foreman for a large printing press company in the city. We’d chat about the recent vacation he took with his family to New Mexico, and his desire to return there.

[Craig Holloway checks the day’s sales, while the great Gina Shelton takes a customer’s call. All photos: Craig Holloway Collection]

The Voodoo Bike

Sometime in the late '80s, my bike mechanic friend John finally agreed to sell me his 1972 British-made Raleigh bicycle. I handed him $150 dollars in cash and a cold, six-pack of beer. He cracked open two brews, handed one back to me, and we both took long swigs, saluting the voodoo bike. I asked John where the bike’s name came from and he had no idea. He did request that I bring the voodoo in for maintenance every now and then. We shook hands, and then I wheeled the faded red single-speed out the bike shop’s door toward Chicago’s lakefront.

Editor's note: Today's story comes from yoga instructor, daily bike commuter and Patagonia editor, Craig Holloway.

The voodoo is one of the last production bicycles made by Raleigh before it was sold to an Asian manufacturer. The bicycle’s most elegant feature is the headlamp post, with its engraved phoenix situated in front of the handlebars. Children notice the phoenix right away and like to rub its metal beak. The voodoo also features old-fashioned, cable-rod lever brakes, brazed-on pump pegs, and a nifty foldout basket attached to the rear fender. The frame’s geometry makes for an aristocratic upright ride, and eccentric viewing for drivers and passers-by.

[The voodoo rests against a tree at the Patagonia campus. Ventura, California. All photos: Craig Holloway]

Inside/Outside: Questions for Patagonia’s Writer and Editor Vincent Stanley

Craig Holloway is back with another insightful interview. This time around Craig chats with Vincent Stanley, who's been working with his uncle, Yvon Chouinard, for the last 35 years (on and off). Vincent is currently the head writer and editor for Patagonia's marketing team. [Photo by Tim Davis]

CRAIG: You have been employed with Patagonia on and off for the past 35 years. What is the one thing at Patagonia that has stayed the same all the years that you have been here?

VINCENT: That it’s more than a business. There’s even a phrase now for companies like ours, for-profits who care about other things: social enterprise. A social enterprise is said to wend a path somewhere between that of a conventional business and an NGO. Back in the early seventies no such thing was considered possible. We were a social enterprise before you could name it.

CRAIG: In one word – describe what the Chouinard family means to you.

VINCENT: Home. I don’t seem to feel at home anywhere fully but I do when I’m with my family. I’m a Chouinard on my mother’s side. Yvon was my boyhood hero and later, after I came to work here, mentor. Our lives – his and Malinda’s and Nora’s and mine are interwoven many ways, by our shared experience as family, by all these years at Patagonia, and finally as friends. We and a few other old friends from the company – like the Ridgeways – share a worldview; everyone’s is a bit different but close enough.

The Chouinards by the way are all formidable storytellers. If Aunt Doris had become a writer I’d have had to retire my pen.

Ultrainterview: Krissy Moehl Talks Hardrock 100

Patagonia wordsmith and former ultrarunner, Craig Holloway recently interviewed Patagonia ambassador, Krissy Moehl about her win at this year’s Hardrock 100 in Silverton, Colorado. Krissy is considered one of the top female ultramarathon runners in the country.

Craig: Congratulations on setting the women’s course record (29:24) at the 2007 Hardrock 100. You were the first woman and placed third overall. How is your recovery going?

Krissy: Recovery is such an important and overlooked part of endurance events. In the first week following Hardrock I felt great, probably soaring high from the endorphins and excitement of a surprise success. I was definitely sore in the joints (knees and ankles) and could tell I’d done something. My muscles fared surprisingly well through all of the elevation changes. I ate a ton during the event and think that helped me avoid muscle cramping and tearing/breakdown. In the second post recovery week I started to feel depleted and exhausted. Traveling home to Seattle and then to the East Coast for work I didn’t get much sleep and was away from any kind of normal routine. Slowly, I’m coming around.

[Krissy Moehl on the trail. Photo: Luis Escobar]