"It used to be a lot of hippie types. Now there's money involved and there are professional people," said Betsy Nichols, marketing and sales vice president for Alpineaire Foods, one of 21 companies that participated in the first Outdoor Retailer trade show - in 1982 in Las Vegas - and are still around for this year's rendition, which begins Wednesday at the newly expanded Salt Palace Convention Center.

But in some ways, the show - along with its winter counterpart held in February - hasn't changed much since its inception, perhaps the key ingredient for keeping the biannual gathering of exhibitors vibrant and growing.

"The attendee is pretty much the same person: very adventurous," said Jim Graham, consumer division manager for Pelican Products Inc., best known then and now for making watertight cases. "There's a great attitude here. That's what's wonderful about it."

"It really gets back to the people," concurred Skip Yowell, co-founder and now vice president of global public relations for JanSport, a California-based pack and apparel manufacturer whose products are sold at 85 retail outlets in Utah. "So many people in the industry have a passion for the outdoors. It's where their hobbies coincide with their work. That ethic runs throughout the industry."

Like-minded people having fun together. It's an appealing attraction, said Brent Klages, spokesman for St. Louis-based Slumberjack, another 25-year Outdoor Retailer veteran.

"The energy level here jumps up immensely around OR time," he said. "You get to see a lot of people you haven't seen in awhile. It's good to see their smiles. It's a good time for business and a good time for the industry to come together and talk about what's working and what's not."

Establishing that kind of environment has always been the goal of the trade show, said organizer Peter Devin of VNU Expositions.

"From the early days in Reno and into 2006, including the tornado in 1999, Outdoor Retailer has worked to

support and assist the marketplace in their efforts to conduct community and commerce together," he said.

For the 21 companies that have persevered through Outdoor Retail's 25 years - 72 other original exhibitors have fallen by the wayside - there usually have been upturns and downturns, mergers and consolidations, sometimes even growth unimaginable in the trade show's early days.

Example: Seattle-based Outdoor Research, known as Outdoor Foods a quarter of a century ago, has rebounded from the death of its founder in a backcountry avalanche three years ago. Now in a growth spurt, it is adding sleeping bags and tents to its long-standing focus on shells and gloves.

Don Gearing of Alpineaire Foods has seen it all, too.

His business of providing freeze-dried and dehydrated foods boomed during the much-ballyhooed but ultimately meaningless Y2K scare. When its prognostications proved groundless, and Western civilization didn't collapse because computer systems weren't left befuddled by the change of centuries, business dropped off precipitously.

"He survived it all," said his colleague Nichols. "There was a learning curve after that, and now we're back on our feet. That's part of the reason why Don's very proud of the fact he's been at OR for 25 years."

Like everyone else at the show, he evolved with the times.

"We all got into it more for fun and to make better products to enhance our [own] time in the outdoors," said Outdoor Research spokesman Todd Walton. "Somewhere along the line it got to be a real business."

Evidence of that is everywhere.

When Nichols peruses the Salt Palace exhibit space, expanded by 145,000 square feet this year to accommodate the summer market's 950 exhibitors and 20,000 attendees, she knows she will see displays that exude the big investments now being made by companies to stand out from the rest of the crowd.

What will come to mind for Slumberjack's Klages is the systemic change that has occurred in this technological age.

"We've had to adjust and become more tech savvy," he said, not just in conceiving, manufacturing and delivering products, but also in ensuring seamless communications with clients, ranging from one-store outlets to regional and national chains.

"How many computers were being used [in 1982]?" Klages asked rhetorically. "Take a look at every booth now and everybody will have their laptops. Every one of our customers will bring their inventories on computer printouts. . . . How many people had phones in their booths in '82? Now everybody has a cell phone."

No matter what technology is in vogue in a given year, the ever-growing trade show has always represented the best way for companies to expose their product lines or services to an ever-broadening group of potential customers.

Said Walton of Outdoor Research: "OR is the place to introduce products and show, not just retailers but everybody else in the industry, that as a company we're doing new things and constantly innovating."

That's the only way to stay ahead, noted JanSport's Yowell, citing the increased competition that exists because "outdoor equipment and apparel have become so much more mainstream, whether it's walking in the park, going to a stadium or recreating in the outdoors."

This is the 11th year in a row the summer market has been staged in Salt Lake City, a tenure extended because of the $52 million expansion project that added the exhibit space and 72,000 square feet of meeting rooms to the Salt Palace. And that's just fine with all of the longtime exhibitors contacted by The Salt Lake Tribune.

"When it moved to Salt Lake City [in 1996] we were apprehensive," admitted Graham of Pelican Products. "But we were pleasantly surprised."

Outdoor Research's Walton said he believes it wouldn't hurt to try another venue sometime. "But with all of the things Salt Lake City has to offer, it's hard to find a better venue," he added. "For the winter show, you just have to drive up the canyon and you're skiing. That's great."

mikeg@sltrib.com

Outdoor Retailer summer market

Number of booths up from 400 in 1982 to more than 4,000 in 2006

Additional 145,000 square feet of exhibit space will allow 200 new exhibitors this year, increasing total to 950

60 manufacturers and more than 1,000 retailers expected Monday and Tuesday at outdoor products "Open Air Demo" at Willard Bay

Nearly 20,000 people in all predicted to attend the event, which is not open to the public