sale to a loyal customer is worth six to eight times more to our bottom line than a sale to another customer.

you care about having a company where employees treat work as play and regard themselves as ultimate customers for the products they produce, then you have to be careful whom you hire, treat them right, and train them to treat other people right. Otherwise, you may come to work one day and find it isn’t a place you want to be anymore.

Is It Functional?

As individual consumers, the single best thing we can do for the planet is to keep our stuff in use longer.

We designed our own versions, called Stoppers and Hexentrics, and sold them in small quantities until the appearance of the first Chouinard Equipment catalog in 1972.

We are a product-driven company. That means the product comes first and the company exists to create and support our products.

seems to me if there is an answer, it lies in these words: restraint, quality, and simplicity.

It applies more to “discovering” a new fabric or a new process. Again, the key word is discovering instead of inventing. There’s simply no time for inventing.

Claire Pennoyer Chouinard high up in a merlin’s nest, Cascapedia River, Quebec,