Page 55 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2022

55 YEARS IS WORTH THE WAIT

Sawyer—an industry leader in
hand crafting paddles and oars

km collins provided by Sawyer

his spring, when I signed up for rowing school, I knew my
SquareTop Sawyer oars wouldn’t cut it. Even though they
are my absolute favorite piece of rafting equipment and I
Tam attached to them at the hip (just ask anyone I raft with),
the rowing school was on class IV water and would require a beefy
fiberglass oar shaft like the Sawyer MXS-G. These could arguably take
a greater beating than the SquareTops, which are intended for calmer
water. (Whether or not this is true is a major point of contention in the
rafting industry – don’t even get me started on the blades.)

When I went to order my MXS-G oars several weeks out, Sawyer
politely let me know I was way behind the eight ball and wouldn’t
get them in time for my rowing school. Luckily, Zach Collier with
Northwest Rafting Company (and incidentally Sawyer’s favorite gear
testing guinea pig) was hosting the course and saved the day by pro-
viding MXS-G oars for me to borrow. But the whole process had me
asking, why are all my favorite rafting retailers taking so long to fulfill
gear orders?
COVID SPIKES GROWTH IN THE OUTDOOR INDUSTRY

The outdoor industry is experiencing a watershed moment in mar-
ket growth and expansion. The boating industry, a niche of the out-
door industry, has been hustling triple time to meet the ever growing
customer demand. On top of increased demand, upriver logjams like
shipping slowdowns and supply shortages are still plaguing fulfillment
as the economy rebounds from shutdowns in the early days of the pan-
demic. Sawyer has not been immune to these challenges.

“Sawyer is producing the most amount of product that we have ever
produced in the history of the company, ever,” notes owner/opera-
tor and CEO Zac Kauffman. “Orders have increased, the volume has
increased, and it hasn’t stopped. We are building inventory and prod-
ucts around the clock, all the time and it’s just not enough to where we
have tons of stock.”

Sawyer is asking, how much of this surge in customer base will be
retained in the long run? “We aren’t able to just flip a switch and
increase our output to 400% more than what it was pre-pandemic.
We have been hiring and training staff for two years, but we are still
playing catchup.”

summer 2022 | www.southernoregonmagazine.com 53