New Hampshire’s outdoor industry is coming together to network, advocate and educate visitors through a new membership-based nonprofit: the Granite Outdoor Alliance.
At a time when the state is seeing unprecedented growth in outdoor activity due to Covid-19 and a bump in new residents due to urban flight, the organization seeks to leverage the state’s outdoor industry, which employs about 79,000.
The hope is to get everyone from land trusts, equipment providers, individual hikers and other recreation interests to work together in one voice to help promote the $8.7 billion a year industry.
New Hampshire’s outdoor community is coming together to network, advocate and educate visitors through a new membership-based nonprofit.
The group, whose board includes representatives of Timberland and NEMO Equipment, along with volunteers for the White Mountain Trail Collective, says it will work on issues from workforce housing to how to deal with litterbugs at Diana’s Baths and parking in the middle of traffic in Franconia Notch.
Tyler Ray of North Conway, principal of Backyard Concept, an advocacy firm based in North Conway, was a driving force behind the alliance. The first president of the organization is Rudy Glocker, owner of Burgeon Outdoor in Lincoln.
Taylor Caswell, commissioner of the state Department of Business and Economic Affairs, said the alliance is a “big step” to showcasing the state as a “worldclass outdoor recreation center” close to many major cities in the United States.
Bolstering the efforts, he said, is the state’s plans to create an Office of Outdoor Recreation in his department and hiring an outdoor director, likely in the first quarter of 2021.
Ray said one of the alliance’s top priorities will be a coordinated “outreach” effort to visitors. The first event to be held, likely virtually, at noon Nov. 6 would be for members to learn about the new Great American Outdoors Act, which permanently funds public lands and was signed by President Donald Trump in August with bipartisan support.
Memberships in the nonprofit begin at $30 for individuals and the scale goes up to corporate fees. For more information, visit graniteoutdooralliance.org.
— PAULA TRACY/INDEPTHNH
