Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2017 - 38

of idle chatter about it. He wants to fix it. Now.
I can tell that Jeremy, a former certified financial planner for UBS Financial Services and
JPMorgan Chase, is that special type of person
who has immense faith in our abilities to prevent catastrophe. He believes that, in business
and in life, we can minimize negative outcomes
by careful planning and impeccable execution.
He likes frugality and facts. He reads self-improvement books.
I'm struck by an odd thought. I am not watching two individuals. I am watching one big Yin
Yang symbol in the middle of the room. Dana
is the white tear-drop shape within the circle.
Jeremy is the black tear-drop shape. Though
in some ways the two are opposites, they form

Feature .01

T'S 10:30 A.M. IN TUCSON, ARIZONA. IT'S ONLY APRIL, AND THE BANK SIGN
down the street reads 91 degrees. The pavement outside Summit Hut Outdoor
Store is sending up shimmery waves of heat. I'm still sweating from a morning hike. I am struck by the silly idea that this city would be a great place for a
camel rental agency. Then again, I decide, maybe not. That's the heat talking.¶
I enter the air-conditioned store, and a 20-something man wearing a Summit
Hut t-shirt guides me down aisle after aisle past a seemingly infinite variety
of outdoors equipment and apparel. We pass through the travel department
and a section of a plane's fuselage. We pass through the ski department, and
I notice an old-fashioned metal chairlift painted fire engine red. We arrive
at a closed door. I knock. The door opens. ¶ I am welcomed by a dog-a border collie/poodle mix-carrying a ball in its mouth. The dog drops the ball at

my feet. I take a seat in the corner. A meeting
is underway between four people: two smartly
dressed women, representatives of a local P.R.
firm; and two other people, a man and a woman. These are the people I've come to interview,
Dana and Jeremy Davis, owners and officers of
Summit Hut, one of the largest outdoor retail
stores in the desert Southwest.
Dana is the store's general manager. She's a
compact, athletic woman with short blonde
hair who reeks of both competence and passion. Jeremy is the CFO. He is a wiry, equally
athletic man sporting a salt-and-pepper beard.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being neatly trimmed
facial hair and 10 being gloriously shaggy like
Walt Whitman's, Jeremy's beard is a hip 7.
Dana sits in a metal chair on one side of the
room, Jeremy on the other. As soon as I sit, I no-

38 OUTDOOR RETAILER

/ Summer 2017

tice that the two principals have very different
styles-and points of view. As a young P.R. assistant runs through the agenda, I watch Dana
and Jeremy closely. Their communication style
is fascinating, complex. They play off each other. Each adds a wildly different perspective.
Each adds different value.
"Dana is the good cop, a great listener,"
Jeremy says. "She tries to see all sides, and I appreciate that about her. My past is the financial
world. I'm more direct. I tell it like it is. We're
different. But we have this in common: We
both work our butts off."
Dana is the empath, the problem solver.
She seeks a win-win for all. She reads novels.
Jeremy, on the other hand, is more logic-driven. Numbers. The bottom line. When faced
with a problem, he doesn't want to hear a bunch

a coherent, powerful whole. And here is where
I should probably share something else about
Dana and Jeremy: They are not only business
partners. They are husband and wife.

IRST AGENDA ITEM: LADIES NIGHT. THE
main questions: How many people do
they think will come? What about the
raffle? Can men win prizes? The latter question inspired by a woman's complaint via
email that last time a man won the prize and
that was wrong.
What's their policy?
The yin yang symbol evaporates, and I see

Outdoor Retailer - Summer 2017

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