What is Minimal Gear
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Minimal Gear is the team behind Cnoc Outdoors and Diorite Gear.
Folks that have heard of one of the individual brands first may be confused, but Minimal Gear was our original (secret?) name that Gilad Nachmani started with back in 2016.
How It All Started
Back in the spring of 2016, Gilad Nachmani went on one of his many trips to the Scottish Highlands where he broke his last commercially made trekking poles near Cnoc na-Gareig. Frustrated with the idea of spending hundreds of dollars on a new pair, he set off to prove you can make better trekking poles, resulting in our very first product, the Vertex.
In 2017, after a trial by fire in hardware manufacturing (and a move from the UK to the USA), Cnoc Outdoors was established and ready to make the first item on Gilad’s perfect gear list: a simple, light water collecting bottle that would work with his Sawyer Squeeze. After lots of development, handshaking and a successful campaign on Kickstarter, and the Vecto was born.
Meanwhile, the Vertex poles had a small but passionate fan base but they had drawbacks - made overseas, redesigns were slow and painful. Eventually, we went through the challenging - but rewarding! - process of bringing the manufacturing of our poles in house, resulting in our Diorite carbon fiber telescopic trekking poles. They are, as far as we know, the only carbon fiber trekking poles to be made in the US. We were so proud of them we launched them into their own brand, Diorite Gear, to give them their own spotlight - as well to better support our carbon fiber products as their trajectory started splitting off from the growing hydration focus of Cnoc Outdoors.
Which leads us to today! An ever growing company behind two outdoor brands. Meet the team behind Minimal Gear below.
Our Team
Gilad
Gilad Nachmani is Minimal Gear's founder and owner. His official job duties include a little bit of everything - no other employee wears as many hats. Born in Israel, Gilad’s outdoor adventure resume is very international and includes some of every kind of adventure - from backpacking to bikepacking to introducing the outdoors to his children.
Mika
Mika Nachmani is Minimal Gear's co-founder. While she doesn’t have a day to day role at the company, she was integral to its founding and is involved both in HR and strategy. While Mika will downplay her own outdoor resume, she’s backpacked, bikepacked, and traversed long distances all sorts of ways, often with a few kids in tow.
Kyle
Kyle is our Logistics & Impact Manager. He runs our Portland warehouse and our Impact programs, including our B-Corp certification, and is our trail crew leader. On the creative side, Kyle is the company videographer and also works on product design and R&D. He's thru-hiked the PCT, and is an avid ski mountaineer & climber.
Becky
Becky is Minimal Gear's marketing manager. She manages our sites, builds our relationships with other outdoor industry folks, and runs our promotion efforts. She’s hiked the AT and the PCT and is currently trying to become a better trail runner to achieve a better mileage to life balance.
Kate
Kate is our Customer Experience and Community Engagement Manager. She handles all things relating to your experience communicating with us: from customer inquiries, running our social pages, and sharing news via our newsletters. She’s a multi-time thru-hiker, including thru-hikes of the AT and the PCT.
Wes
Wes is our sales manager. He handles our wholesale and distributor accounts - if there's a Vecto is a store near you, he probably got it there. A native Oregonian, he's learned to cope with Portland's rainy and gloomy winters by heading up to Mt Hood to ski and enjoy some PNW powder.