SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT
ABOVE: Dennis, Brian, Adam and brother-in-law Doug Eckelkamp celebrate a successful waterfowl hunt in Illinois. TOP RIGHT: Dennis and Adam Brune share a father-son moment after Dennis harvested this bull elk in Wyoming. BELOW: Dennis, Sarah and son Jake. Three generations living the lifestyle on the Brune family farm.
ALPS Brands officially started in 1993, when founder Dennis Brune decided it was time to leave corporate America and develop his own brands. With a strong background in product development, marketing, and sales from his days at ARP and Kelty, Brune’s first brand was ALPS Mountaineering. For the first several years, ALPS only had backpacks and sleeping bags. Still, it quickly expanded into tents, camp furniture, sleeping pads, beds, and other accessories. In 2007, with a desire to have products more focused on the hunting and shooting sports industries, ALPS OutdoorZ was developed. Initially offered under OutdoorZ, the product lines focused primarily on hunting packs, stools, and chairs. Since then, it has expanded into turkey and waterfowl products, as well as a high-performance line of packs under the Extreme sub-brand. In 2010, Brune was approached by Browning to license Browning Camping gear. This has become a successful, growing brand with product lines of tents, sleeping bags, camp furniture, and hunting blinds. So even though ALPS has three unique brands serving
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somewhat different markets and consumers, the product positioning for all of them is very similar. Each brand offers performance-oriented products built with the best materials to last a lifetime of use and abuse. Along with delivering quality gear, a key element in the production process was keeping a close eye on prices that appeal to a wide variety of outdoor consumers. Another unique asset of ALPS Brands is incorporating their family into the business. Quite often, when a new consumer brand is launched, the early years can be rather lean in terms of personnel and resources. Brune is known for saying, “In those first 10 years, we redefined bootstrapping!” In 2003, he hired his oldest son, Brian, to assist him with sales as the business began to take off. He hired his wife, LaRayne, to help with office administration the following year. When his second son, Adam, was ready to graduate from college, he hired him to help with product development and international sourcing. In 2009, Dennis hired his daughter, Sarah, to focus on logistics and supply chain management. A trend began taking place. The closeknit team consisting primarily of family members continued to grow the business and along the way they hired more friends and family. Fast forward to 2022. With the company approaching 50 team members, Brune strongly believes these new additions to their family
