Now Open: Mountain Equipment Co-op, 8th Avenue Store, 1982

It has been a lingering death that began 3 decades ago, when Mountain Equipment Co-op abandoned its founding principles.

Just a year shy of its 50th anniversary as a (putative) member-driven cooperative, MEC will be sold to California-based private investment firm Kingswood Capital Management LP. Another Canadian institution sold down the Swanny.

It was inevitable, I suppose, given human nature. Ideals wither in the face of the urge to acquire. In fact, I bought my first $5 membership at the Calgary store, the second location after Vancouver, in 1977.

The CBC quoted an old colleague, Sarah Golling, last night. Her observation is shared by many of the founding members.

“I think it lost its cooperative focus. It got taken over, it got co-opted, it got sucked into the capitalist, eternal growth thing.”

In another interview, Golling singled out management as perpetrators of the sort of “anti-cooperative values” MEC was “actually founded to provide members with an alternative to.”

As MEC turned 10, in 1981, staff and a few board members questioned the Co-op’s growth into a general sporting goods store, competing with “big box” retailers. Did we need to carry sports shirts and running shoes?

The cooperative, after all, began from a simple idea: to provide local adventurers (from the back of a Volkswagen Van) affordable mountaineering equipment, hence the name. It naturally expanded to include other outdoor products: tents, backpacks, lightweight hiking and climbing stoves, cross-country and ski mountaineering (not downhill) gear, and thanks to myself and Marty Young, a bicycle accessory department that years later grew to include bicycles, including an MEC-branded line.

Right there was an example of overreach that MEC was not qualified to pursue. It did not endear them to independent, local bike shops whose proprietors had often been supportive members. They saw the Co-op’s acquisitiveness as a kick in the spokes. As someone who came to MEC (in 1981) from the LBS world (beginning at Cap’s Bicycle Shop’s original Sapperton store, in 1968), bringing with me my contacts in the industry, I felt just a bit responsible, having encouraged buyers to stock those first cycling accessories.

At the 3rd bricks-and-mortar location (after 4th Ave. and Fir St.), the discord set in. As I’ve written here before, it was the betrayal of loyal, experienced associates in favour of an outside management hire that set the stage for a rather nasty rupture, in 1983. The Vancouver shop, at 8th and Yukon, operated like a dysfunctional climbing expedition, with infighting and competition for a crack at the “summit.”

What the hell’s going on?

That ideological shift was the first example of the pursuit of growth at the expense of qualified product expertise. Perhaps some of the early acquisitions and expansions could have been rationalized if they had accomplished another of the founding ideas: affordability. But prices kept rising until they seemed to be no better than those at competing stores that clustered like limpets around each new MEC location. And, many of the high-turnover staff were no more knowledgeable than clerks over at Canadian Tire’s camping department.

In the next phase, offshoot businesses that had provided employment for local entrepreneurs (some former staff and associates) were abandoned in favour of offshore manufacturers using cheap labour.

Complaints from board and members at large were ignored.

While I’ve been assembling this post a new resistance of sorts has formed amongst members who believe those founding principles may yet be rekindled. Online petitions (with up to 30,000 141,000 signatures) have been launched to save “Meck.” Some legal experts have questioned the legality of the governing board’s autocratic decision. In response, talking suits opine that that’s the way corporations work. Even premier John Horgan has expressed his disappointment.

As I’ve said in other MEC-related posts (see “mec” tag below), I owe Mountain Equipment Co-op a certain amount of gratitude. In 1981, it was my dream job. Many of the staff were my friends, room mates, and expedition partners, with whom I formed relationships both fleeting and lifelong. The Co-op provided a chance to develop my commercial photography expertise, as I hope a few examples in the gallery below illustrate. And, funds from my commercial work funded in part what has become a more important and lucrative body of work: my ’80’s Vancouver portfolio.

Who knows, maybe the store’s new American owners will redeem what had become something of a joke among original supporters. The transition team have said they plan to return to core products — climbing, camping, snow sports — while dumping yoga tights and pet treats. Pet treats.

I guess this will likely be the last of my MEC-related posts. So, here’s a gallery of memories from the archive. Be sure to expand the gallery with controls.

Footnote: As MEC, not yet 50 years old, is prepared for “the market,” the outdoor co-op that inspired it, REI, lives on, 86 years after its founding. REI arose from the same need amongst Seattle-area mountaineers to source affordable climbing gear, and was guided by the cooperative ideals that were also the inspiration for MEC.

Though I have a membership, I’m not familiar with recent politics at REI. It now has “19 million lifetime members, over 13,000 employees and 165 locations in 39 states and the District of Columbia.” I’d be surprised if an organization of that size hasn’t seen some conflict. But it still runs as a co-op and, unlike MEC, which has always avoided sharing the good times, it issues regular dividends.