CAMP CHAMP: Tom Dempsey's lightweight campers are selling fast, propelling SylvanSport to double employment as more people explore the outdoors.

• Author: Martin, Edward

Tom Dempsey's version of a three-martini lunch: Mountain biking on a trail winding through the green shadows of Pisgah National Forest with birds chirping, gears clicking and companions breathing heavily. "We love it here," he says. "Not many places you can get out-of-doors, wind up high up on a mountain and be back at your desk in an hour."

His desk is in Brevard, where he's founder and CEO of SylvanSport LLC. Midday bike treks fit the formula he created in 2004 when he began making the first of what will soon be SylvanSport's 5,000th camping trailer. They're the Swiss Army knives of the trade, unusual in that they're so light and compact they can be towed behind small cars, and adaptable enough to carry gear such as canoes and mountain bikes.

SylvanSport is more than doubling its payroll to 45 people this summer, while holding true to its roots. Its Brevard factory is a center of high industrial technology, adventure appeal and fondness for the outdoors, tempered with business acumen.

A private company, it doesn't release revenue, but sales point to a healthy bottom line. SylvanSport manufactures two models--the Go and the Go Easy--with the top-selling Go retailing for about $10,000. It'll sell more than 1,000 Go versions this year, along with several hundred Go Easy campers, through a network that extends to about 30 countries. It recently opened a dealership in New Zealand.

OUTDOORS SCORE

Maybe because there's so much of it. the outdoors is often unrecognized for its economic clout But no longer will it be ignored. "It's a $28 billion annual industry in North Carolina," says Tom Dempsey, founder of camping-trailer maker SylvanSport LLC in Brevard. In January, the N.C. Department of Commerce's Outdoor Recreation Industry Office opened with $250,000 approved by the legislature in June 2017 after lobbying by Dempsey and others. He chairs the industry group that advises the office.

The outdoors as an economic driver is a natural. "We need to help build bridges betuueen the business side of outdoor recreation and the public side," Dempsey says. "The backpack or camper that's built by private industry is almost certainly going to be used on public land, and as more people are out there in tents, sleeping bags, RVs or whatever, the pressure on public lands becomes greater and greater. We really feel it in western North Carolina, particularly in the summer."

About 270,000 people work In the outdoor industry in the state, adds Commerce Secretary...