Troop Chic

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Demetrios Coupounas, an avid outdoorsman and entrepreneur, dreamed of tapping into the money spigot known as the Pentagon. But until last year he had come up parched. A co-founder of GoLite — a privately held outdoor-gear firm based in Boulder, Colo.--Coupounas tried to sell military purchasers on his company's lightweight tents, backpacks and sweat-wicking T shirts. But even after calling evaluators at the Army's gear-testing center in Natick, Mass., meeting with sales reps who hawk wares to the military and calling Navy SEAL officers directly, he had booked just a handful of individual sales to a fighter here and there.

Shortly after the war in Afghanistan, however, Coupounas set up a booth at an outdoor-gear trade show in Anaheim, Calif., and to his surprise, some of the same military buyers who had rebuffed him for years came clamoring for his goods. He started selling small batches of GoLite undergarments to special-forces units. Today he says he has a thriving military business, accounting for 10% of his roughly $5 million in annual sales. "We don't actively design for the military," says Coupounas, 37, who climbs 14,000-ft. mountains to personally test his firm's new products. "They just happen to like our stuff."

With the military under orders to get lighter and faster, several companies that make gear for outdoor-adventure athletes are booking sales to special-forces units assigned everywhere from Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains to the Philippine jungles. "Private companies are leading in the R. and D. of this stuff," says Colonel Tom Blume, director of procurement for U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) in Tampa, Fla. "We love off-the-shelf items because we don't have to put R. and D. into them."

The core customers for extreme-sports gear — climbers, adventure racers, trekkers, mountain bikers — torture their clothing and equipment and constantly tell firms how to improve it, demanding tighter seams, tougher fibers, better fit and lighter weight. As the gear has improved, the commandos have latched on. The North Face recently added a camouflage fly to one of its expedition tents in the hope of making more military sales. In every other way, says Jill Pagliaro, a spokeswoman for North Face, "the design for Alpine athletes and military usage is similar."

Unlike giant defense contractors, many extreme-sports-gear companies are privately held and can't afford to hire Washington lobbyists or navigate the thickets of red tape involved in bidding for government contracts. Instead, they're getting their gear into military exchanges and booking sales to individual troops who want the equipment and pay for it out of their pockets. Army soldiers and Marines, for instance, are allowed to buy a handheld global positioning system, or GPS, unit (shown above) or sweat-wicking T shirts to wear under their fatigues.

Companies are forging ties with military distributors and often selling directly to commandos. SOCOM is purchasing more expedition innerwear, shells, boots and other apparel that meets the so-called 80% test: whether a product satisfies at least 80% of the fighters' demands. If the item costs less than $2,500 and a unit is being deployed, say, to a mountainous region and requires the latest high-altitude tents, a team member can go to a retail chain like REI, based in Sumner, Wash., pick out the best one and buy it with a government-issued charge card. (For purchases of more than $2,500, the buyer needs to show that he sought competing bids, and a contracting officer gets involved.) This streamlined purchasing process started in the early 1990s but is being used more frequently in the war on terrorism.

If several units give a piece of equipment the thumbs-up, word gets around. That's how Camelbak (owned by Kransco, based in San Francisco) earned its stripes. Its hydration system — a backpack that holds water, with a tube extending to the mouth — first made it into combat during Gulf War I, when special-operations forces sneaked it into their packs because they preferred it to a canteen. Elite troops then began buying Camelbaks through military exchanges and distributors and directly from Camelbak. Camelbaks (and other hydration systems like it) are now practically standard issue for special forces and are becoming widespread among regular troops. Senior vice president Woody Scal says that in Iraq, Camelbaks were issued to the Army's 101st and 82nd Airbornes, the Marines' 1st Division and Navy SEALs, among other units.

Thales Navigation, based in Santa Clara, Calif., sells Magellan GPS devices that start at about $170 and reports a "significant increase in sales to military personnel." The company, a subsidiary of the French firm Thales, books about $200 million in revenues from GPS units. A few months before the war in Iraq, the company says, orders surged, spurred by sales to individual troops who sometimes purchased the equipment from RadioShack and Wal-Mart stores near military bases. Garmin, a rival GPS maker based in the Cayman Islands, outfitted its units with a military-coordinate grid system, making it easier for troops to find a meeting place should they get lost. Oakley, based in Foothill Ranch, Calif., whose sunglasses have become military fashion statements, recently introduced eyewear with specially tinted lenses designed to protect against weapons-guidance-system lasers, which can damage the eyes of troops in a target's vicinity.