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Colorado Has The Right Politics For Outdoor Retailers, Utah Businessman Says

"Colorado Calling" Screenshot/Elevation Outdoors
Elevation Outdoors Magazine made a video to welcome the outdoor recreation industry to Utah. Publisher Elizabeth O’Connell says Colorado is excited to showcase its outdoor opportunities and companies through the show.";

Black Diamond founder Peter Metcalf helped make Utah a hub for outdoor-recreation businesses and lured the industry’s big trade show to Salt Lake City. This year, the trade show’s relocated to Colorado where public-lands politics are more in line with the industry’s.

Metcalf is there, too, as more than a thousand exhibitors set up booths in an expanded trade show that was held in Utah for two decades.

Peter Metcalf only had to make the trip to downtown Salt Lake City to attend the Outdoor Retailer trade show for all of those years. But the show pulled up stakes last year after Utah’s Republican politicians lobbied to have the Bears Ears National Monument scrapped.

“Departing was a way to say: ‘We cannot conduct a trade show in a state that is Ground Zero for the worst, cancerous policies in America,” he said, restating the rallying cry that prompted the show's move.

Credit Renee Bright/KUER News
Peter Metcalf

Metcalf says “horrific” public-land policies threaten what’s made Utah the right place for outdoor recreation and the $12-billion-dollar industry its inspired here.

“They are under full attack in the state of Utah — that’s how people see it," he said of the outdoor industry and the conservation community tied to it. "And I think it really will begin to affect tourism. It will affect the ability to get any more outdoor companies to come to Utah.”

Ultimately, the Fortune 500 companies that came to Utah for its quality of life and wild landscapes will become disillusioned because of how the policies play out, Metcalf said.

Even though the Outdoor Retailers show has moved, the public lands policy fight continues — in the courts, in Congress and even in a Twitter war between Utah congressman Rob Bishop and the outdoor company Patagonia.

Metcalf said attending the trade show in Denver feels "surreal." One reason is the warm welcome the industry’s received by lawmakers and other political leaders in Colorado.

https://vimeo.com/250500876">Elevation Outdoors Presents Colorado Calling from https://vimeo.com/summitpublishing">Blue Ridge Outdoors on Vimeo.

Judy Fahys has reported in Utah for two decades, covering politics, government and business before taking on environmental issues. She loves covering Utah, where petroleum-pipeline spills, the nation’s radioactive legacy and other types of pollution provide endless fodder for stories. Previously, she worked for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, and reported on the nation’s capital for States News Service and the Scripps League newspaper chain. She is a longtime member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She also spent an academic year as a research fellow in the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her spare time, she enjoys being out in the environment, especially hiking, gardening and watercolor painting.
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