Who Owns REI?

I am REI member No. 348240, all juiced up for another unsupervised spending spree at Seattle's premier purveyor of yuppie outdoor gear, annual dividend check burning a hole in my pocket.

In 30 years of membership I've squandered $8,094.67 at the co-op my basement is a boneyard of recreational paraphernaliabut, incredibly, there are a few items here I haven't yet acquired. Like this pocket-sized Breath of Life oxygen kit, $169.95, the ideal alpine pick-me-up. Or this 8-ounce can of Counter Assault Bear Deterrent spray, $37.95, ready to spew out a 30-foot cone of pure pain. (Do ya feel lucky, Mr. Grizzly? Well do ya, punk?) Or, for a mere $429, this Suunto X-6 HR wrist computer that will gather gobs of indispensable dataheart rate, elevation, even time of dayand upload it to the Internet "for analysis."

Next week is the 65th birthday of Recreational Equipment Inc., and REIalready the nation's leading outdoor-equipment outlet and largest retail cooperativeis poised for the biggest growth spurt in its history.

My plan today is to piss away the $79.15 rebate REI kicked back from last year's $967.06 spending orgy and then embark on a fact-finding mission. For at least 15 years, as the gear selection here has become increasingly pricey and superfluous, I've been wondering, How come they carry chocolate-covered cherries but no inexpensive parkas? And as the number of REI locations has climbed from a single Seattle store to 66 outlets in 24 statesfour new ones last year and seven or eight more scheduled for 2003I've been thinking, How is opening a new shop in suburban Chicago going to help the folks in Seattle whose business and loyalty built this co-op?

Most of all, I've wanted to know whether the 2.1 million active memberspurported owners of this $735 million- a-year businesshave even a remote say in the way it is run. In other words, Do the members really own REI? And if not, Who does?

THE OBVIOUS STARTING point in this unofficial inquiry is REI's voluptuous flagship store, at John Street and Yale Avenue North. I want to talk with employees. I mean, if I really own a piece of this business, then I'd like to know how the company is treating people in my name. Today I've hooked up with Wayne Colwell, 49, a friendly guy who helped set up the co-op's new outfitting program.

Colwell is the kind of contented worker company officers like to point to as an example of why REI has been named to Fortune's list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For" for six years running. One of only nine companies to make the Fortune 100 list every year since its inception, REI ranked 73rd this yearbehind local stars Microsoft and Starbucks, but ahead of Nordstrom, law firm Perkins Coie, and Washington Mutual. REI's score was based on a random survey of 250 of its 6,000 employees and on the company's response to specific questions about corporate culture, policies, and practices.

While the base annual salary for the co-op's most common white-collar job, inventory analyst, is $46,342, Fortune reports, base pay for an hourly sales specialist is only $15,704. The average hourly starting wage is $7.70increasing to just $9 an hour after five years' employment. That's at least $2 to $3 below the scale earned by unionized retail workers with half the time on the job, says Todd Crosby, an organizer for United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1001. (As a matter of comparison, nonunion Dick's Drive-In Restaurants, another Seattle institution, pays a starting wage of at least $8.25 per hour; with merit raises, the hourly rate goes to $9 to $10 per hour within two years.)

Outfitter Colwell says the co-op's vaunted benefit packagefull health, life, and disability insurance; retirement/ profit sharing; a work performance incentive plan; discounts on merchandise; and tuition reimbursementis what keeps him working there. But union organizer Crosby says the monetary value of REI's benefits is certainly not enough to offset the company's low wages. The UFCW, he adds, would welcome inquiries from REI employees interested in organizing their own union shop.

In a slick brochure promoting the company's cultureREI: Where professional growth blends with personal satisfactionhanded out by recruiters at job fairs, dozens of beaming co-op employees are shown at work and at play. I can find no discussion of the hourly pay scale, but there are lots of photos and words paying homage to the company's laid-back atmosphere, flexible work policies, and dedication to community service.

Charles Kapise, posed at an REI loading dock, his tattooed arms folded over his chest, sums up the recruiting advertisement's glowing message: "I'd really like to keep my job at REI as long as I canmaybe forever."

THERE IS ANOTHER kind of REI worker, different from the smiling crew in the glossy brochure; that is, former employees who were either fired or left of their own volition, all with a bad taste in their mouths. These people tell a consistent storyof a company culture increasingly focused on sales at the cost of service.

Rebecca Rundquist, an attorney, went to work at REI's Seattle flagship store during the late 1990s, hoping "to find an interesting and educational job that allowed me to do quality environmental legal work on a volunteer basis during my free time." What she found instead was "a new, corporate priority," with an emphasis on sales.