About MSR
Posted by Mark Richardson on Jul 14, 2022
Forget About Starting a Company with a Product — Mountain Safety Research Began as a Crusade.
Lifelong mountaineer Larry Penberthy formed MSR with a single purpose: to improve the safety of climbing equipment. It was the 1960s, and the Seattle engineer’s independent field tests had revealed that gear was often failing at loads far lower that its advertised specs. Fired up, Penberthy set out to change the industry. That one-man crusade grew into a pioneering gear company known for its cutting-edge engineering. Today, many MSR inventions are ubiquitous—remote-burner camp stoves, pit zips on outerwear, cycling helmets. But more important are the historic expeditions and outdoor adventures they’ve helped unlock around the globe.
At MSR, we are engineers, tinkerers and passionate outdoor users–each with strong perspectives on how a product should work based on our own experiences in the wild places we love. But collectively, we believe that innovative solutions are bred by challenging convention, and that functionality, simplicity and reliability are the governing elements of enduring design. Today, many MSR products are still hand-built on manufacturing lines just a floor below where we concept them. And we're still driven to engineer gear for those who believe a trusted companion can be as simple as a 20-year-old stove that burns strong on family backpacking trips, to a water filter that provides the safe hydration needed to fuel the greatest expeditions into the farthest reaches of the globe.
Committed to Keeping Timeless Gear Alive
MSR’s founder, Larry Penberthy, wasn’t just a tech-minded engineer, he was also a passionate outdoorsman. He knew that having respect for the outdoors was one of the best ways to preserve these precious wild places. To him, this meant building his gear to last as long as possible, so that excess resources needn’t be used up to replace it. That dedication to conservation is still alive today.
Manufacturing and Social Responsibility
MSR strives to leave an increasingly positive handprint on the world in which we create and use our outdoor products, and our Manufacturing and Social Responsibility Report outlines our responsible actions to date and path for the future. We are committed to minimizing the social and environmental impacts of our products, suppliers and operations through better materials, safer chemicals and smarter packaging.
MSR is a founding member of the Outdoor Industry Association Sustainability Working Group, a coalition of more than 300 outdoor brands, suppliers and manufacturers dedicated to addressing our most important sustainability challenges. This group launched the Higg Index, our industry’s first sustainability measurement tool. MSR is one of the first hard-good brands to voluntarily use the Higg Index to examine our practices in material traceability, chemical management, social responsibility and other core competencies.
Mountain Safety Research have been making exceptional outdoor equipment for over 50 years, in this post we show you their origins and what kindof company they are.