Not everybody had time to read today’s paper, I know. As a matter of fact, fewer people have time to read it as each day passes, and this phenomenon is true all across the country. This has been a rough week for newspapers, actually. Truth be told, it’s been a rough year. They say it may be the worst year ever for newspapers.
And we thought we had it bad in the outdoor industry…
But hey, I’ve been on vacation so this morning I took the kids to the local surf/coffee cafe and sat down to read the paper while the kids had donuts. Did you have time to read today’s paper? I thought not. Me, I only get to read the paper when I’m on vacation, or when I’m traveling by plane for work.
Today I particularly enjoyed the weekly science section. Here are some of the headlines, with a synopsis:
- “Birth Dearth” – Worldwide, the number of live births of boys vs. girls has been declining, and some think that a notable change is under way, driven by factors such as environmental contaminants and various types of stress.
- “Death March of the Penguins” – Oil pollution, fishery depletion, rampant coastline development and climate change have all adversely affected penguin populations worldwide, many of which are now in sharp decline.
- “Researchers Warn of Decline in Sharks, Disrupted Ecosystems” – In the past two centuries, the shark population in the Mediterranean Sea has plummeted 97 percent.
Okay, it’s the science section so maybe we can expect a green bias. (Scientists are smart, after all…) But San Diego – with all of its military infrastructure – isn’t known as a liberal bastion. Still, does anybody else see a pattern here?
Sometimes, I feel like John Nash, the subject of the movie “A Beautiful Mind.” (No, I don’t think that I’m brilliant, and I’m probably not crazy – well, at least not that crazy…) Every so often though, it seems that patterns just jump out of the paper like one of Nash’s Cold War cyphers.
What is the meaning of this message?
Ponder this for a bit, would you? I’ll be right back. Every time I read the paper I’m supposed to stuff the articles that jump out at me into a plain manila envelope and deliver it to a creepy estate on the edge of town.
Please don’t tell my wife…
Well, really, it’s OUR birthday: Today Pemba Serves turns seventeen! Just think, pretty soon we’ll be old enough to vote. Times like these make one reflective, don’t they?
It seems like only yesterday when we were in swaddling clothes, wearing diapers, sucking on that cute little binkie. Okay, some things don’t change: Almost every day is casual day at PEMBAbase, and sometimes Steve still wears his version of swaddling clothes (is that a ROBE, Steve?); we’re happy to report that Pete’s only wearing diapers at night now; and please don’t ask anybody at the office about my binkie habit – I’m trying to quit. Still, in all these years a lot has changed, too.
In the summer of ’91, as was my practice for many years I spent the month of June climbing in the Alaska Range. It was while on this trip that I decided to open my own retail consulting business. In those days, I worked for Erehwon here in the midwest. Among other things, I was responsible for their newsletter and other types of related promotions for the company. I had this idea that these sorts of things could be done free-lance for a number of outdoor stores at the same time. So this is what I decided to do.
As for the name, some has been written about this elsewhere. For the short version, Pemba was a yak-herder on an expedition to Tibet that I was lucky enough to be a part of in 1988. (For extra credit, check out Peter Breslow’s award-winning NPR broadcasts, and also in the sidebar here.) Pemba made an impression on me, and I liked the idea of having an active-verb (“Serves”) in the name of the company, too. In consulting – in repping also – you’re only as good as the last thing that you’ve done, after all. The idea of being a rather passive noun (for example, “Services”) just wasn’t appealing, either. Frankly, it seemed a little generic, too.
Okay, so it’s a trippy name, I admit. Maybe it’s my degree in writing poetry shining through, ultimately. I blame Mary Kinzie.
So, a couple things happened upon my return from Alaska: 1) A war with Iraq had triggered a recession; and 2) My phone started ringing with other opportunities. I couldn’t do much about the recession, and marketing dollars were being cut in outdoor stores everywhere. And, the opportunities were good: Michael Crooke called about working as a rep for Moonstone; Karen T’Kint wanted to know if I might consider repping Five Ten; Dion Goldsworthy was looking to revitalize Gregory, and he needed a rep, also; Roody Rasmussen convinced Steve Hudson at PMI/Petzl that he needed a midwest rep… And so it happened that way, and Pemba Serves became a sales agency.
We’ve been lucky over the years to work with a lot of great companies and people. Truly, we’ve worked with legends, and legends have worked with us. We’ve been very lucky, in general. We’re thankful for every relationship, including those on our team, our vendors past and present, and – as always – for our customers, too.
Things have changed quite a bit in the repping world in the last seventeen years. Along with many others these days, we see a future where reps in the outdoor industry work more like business consultants than anything else. And so in this way maybe things have come full circle, and we’re back to the original vision of who we were going to be. We’ll see.
So, today, thanks to everybody who has helped to bring us another birthday. (In other words, thank YOU!) It’s a privilege to work with you all.
