This week on the podcast we are continuing with the Business of Outdoor Recreation series as Brent sits down with Gary Vernon, Director of Outdoor Recreation and Trail Innovation at Runway Group. They discuss the growth of mountain biking and outdoor recreation in Arkansas. Gary shares his background growing up in Missouri and his 30 year career at Walmart before leaving to work with Tom Walton on developing Bentonville's trail ecosystem. He describes the evolution of mountain biking in Northwest Arkansas and the economic impact of $157 million annually. Gary also explores the growing gravel biking scene and trail developments across the state of Arkansas.

You know, this whole idea about bringing

mountain bike trails to town bringing access to outdoors to

town was a successful formula. We are becoming a center of

excellence for for bicycling and trails.

Welcome to the Be Epic Podcast brought to you

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Arkansas. I'm your host Brent Williams. Together, we'll

explore the dynamic landscape of business and uncover the

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today. Well,

today I have with me Gary Vernon. Gary is Director of

Outdoor Recreation and Trail Innovation at the Runway Group.

Gary, thanks for joining today.

Well, thanks Brent for having me.

Well, I am interested to dive in on

mountain biking and its impact on our economy. And I love how

outdoor recreation in the state of Arkansas is growing and has

become a real focus, not only in Northwest Arkansas, but

throughout the state. But maybe I want to start with you first.

Your background. I know you, you spent several years at Walmart

and you spent several years at the Walton Family Foundation

prior to to joining the Runway Group. So a little bit maybe

professionally, personally, and then I'll dig in on mountain

biking and how you got into it.

Yeah, yeah, well, just personally, I'm just a kid

from Joplin, Missouri that liked the race BMX bikes and ended up

in Bentonville because I had a 30 year career at Walmart. Last

10 years, I was a director in the environmental compliance

area and had this really unique opportunity to work on

sustainability programs when it came to recycling and waste to

products and had a great job until I ran into a 23 year old

visionary by the name of Tom Walton. And he had this idea of

bringing mountain biking to town, you know, build trails in

town and Bentonville, which was really a fringe sport back then.

And so I ended up leaving my 30 year career with Tom and joined

Tom and his brother Steuart to lead their work to develop this

mountain bike vision to build a destination in and around

Bentonville and here I am.

You know, it's it's pretty amazing now, you can

go almost anywhere in the United States. And people now know

Bentonville and, you know, of course, they probably know it

either because of Walmart or mountain biking it seems and the

mountain biking scene has exploded. And you've been a key

part of that. How has this whole thing developed?

Well, you know, Arkansas has had some wonderful

trails for decades, you know, the Ozark Off Road Cyclists

started in 97, you know, that club here in Fayetteville. But,

you know, back then it was an enthusiast sport, you know, the

trails were built by enthusiasts for for that, that mountain

biker. And what, what happened in Bentonville, you know, and it

didn't happen on the first five miles, you know, in back in

2007, when that first five miles were open it it wasn't really

catered to the new rider, the beginner had had one little

trail on the flat ground called seed tick. And that kind of

opened everybody's eyes to where people were wanting to ride that

one trail that were just trying to start mountain biking. So

that's when the focus flipped and turned into let's build

some, some trails specifically for beginners. And that's where

the All American Trail, that connector trail that goes all

through Bentonville, starting from the square that was focused

on building a fun trail that is not intimidating, but still had

some alternate places to jump and all that. But that magical

Tell us a little bit about, well for those that haven't ridden

trail, the All American, really was the secret sauce to

Bentonville. And really the success of you know, the first

12-15 miles and that seems to be the the amount of miles that

these trails, Coler is an interesting place, right? In the

we're telling other communities. If you can get 10 to 12 miles of

trail it'll, it'll start really becoming something special

that'll transform your community. We saw that, you

know, the first 10 to 12 miles. The success, the people that

set, you know, it seems like it is truly designed for certainly

were riding mountain bikes that otherwise wouldn't be riding

mountain bikes started really evolving. You know, the tipping

point was 2016. That's when we had enough miles and hadn't

an enthusiast, but particularly accessible for anyone, whether

started having bigger events. And people started hearing about

Bentonville. We had the International Mountain Bike

Association's World Summit that end of that year. We just built

the back 40 trail in Bella Vista started on Coler Mountain Bike

you're walking on the trail, you're having a cup of coffee,

Preserve. And it was that was from when it really started booming.

you know, you can ride, you know, in the midst of all of

that. It just seems like a really interesting place to me.

Yeah, you know, and that was the year that, I was a volunteer,

you know, I'd met Tom and when he first started the first five

miles and ended up as the president of a local club, you

know, Fast in Bentonville, Bella Vista, and, and was just doing

projects, and it got to be too much to be able to work my job

at Walmart and do all these projects. So Tom and Steuart

brought me on full time in 2015. So Coler was an idea that Tom

had, back then it was a 300 acre park with a creek going through

it a perfect little canvas, you know, to build the trail system.

But the idea we brought in a couple of different companies,

you know, some architects, a consulting group that had

designed national parks and, and just others that were an artist,

you know, and, and trail designers, and just we all sat

around a table and talked about ideas. What can we do with this

little 300 acre parcel just three miles west of the square.

And there was an old barn in the middle of the valley, where

Oscar and Esther Terrell had built their homestead back in

1930. Well, when that barn was a good anchor, you know, what can

we do around this barn? Well, we obviously wanted to redo the

barn. But where that old home was, was no longer there was a

perfect area to put a cafe. And that was a kind of a crazy idea

to build a cafe in the middle of a 300 acre park that you can't

drive to. You can only bike or hike to and we thought man,

that's going to be just a real big gamble. But that ended up

being a homerun. Mark Bray from airship coffee, stepped up and

opened up his operation there in November of 2020, pandemic, you

know, and but everybody was getting outside because of those

trails were allowing people to get out of the house and get

active. So that coffee shop all winter was booming. And even

today, it's you can go there on a Tuesday, you know, afternoon

and it's full of people.

Pretty, what a cool place.

But you're right, the trails are designed. If you

look at the map, you know, the highest peak at Coler is kind of

the northeast side of the, you know, the the parkway, it kind

of almost runs north and south, maybe a little bit crooked. But

the northeast side is kind of has the highest peak. And that's

where we wanted to put some gravity jump trails and some

technical trails to ride down. But then on the southwest, it's

kind of the easier train and through the valley. So it's kind

of separated into a jump trail, more advanced on the northeast,

and then a family fun area on the southwest and then

connecting it all throughout the middle and then the Greenway the

paved trail, goes down the valley on the creek, you know,

fall in the creek. And then there's some easy trails for the

kids to ride along that paved trail.

Yeah. So such a wonderful place. And it's fun to

just, it's just a fun place to be and fun place to take your

family and there's kind of something for everybody there,

it seems to me, you know, and I know you've been focused on

Bentonville. And we've it seems to me that we've really seen

mountain biking grow throughout the state, right, you know, now

Devil's Den is amazing. Nebo, Pinnacle at Little Rock, kind of

what do you see in you know, if you kind of step back and look

at Arkansas and what's happening in mountain biking?

Well, Arkansas had five major trail systems, you

know, in the early 2000s, that were considered by the

International Mountain Bike Association, they rated trails,

and they were considered epic trails, you know, they were 20

plus miles and they were, you know, the scenery was great. And

the conditions were good, but they are in the middle of

nowhere. And so when Bentonville was an experiment, so

Bentonville, the success of that building a trail in town, where

people could pop over there on the trail on lunch, or after

school after work, that changed everything where other

communities wanted trails. So that really started a spark that

spread throughout Arkansas. And then we started looking at, you

know, there's some great places to build trail, but we're not

going to build anymore in national forest because we have

trail counters that measures how many people ride trails, we

noticed that these five trails in the middle of national

forests, were getting no visitors, you know, maybe maybe

a big bump, if there's an event, but throughout the year, it was

a lot of maintenance, because they're in the middle of nowhere

and there's no volunteers nearby or even staff at the Forest

Service to maintain them. So we're having to pay to maintain

those trails. So that's when we connected with Grady Span, the

state park director and started working with him and like what

you know, some of the best terrain we have in the state is

state parks. And you talk about, you know, Mount Nebo, Devil's

Den, those are state parks, they have cabins they have, in some

cases, they have restaurants and they definitely have staff that

can maintain trails. So that became a relationship. In late

2015 we took Grady and his staff to some site visits for you

know, around the country for destinations for trails, and

they really started to get how wonderful this relationship

could be. And that started the brand, the monument trail brand,

which is trails and state parks in Arkansas. So, you know, Mount

Nebo, Hobbs State Park, Pinnacle Mountain, and Devil's Den are

all four of those State Park Monument Trails, and we've got a

few more up our sleeve that are coming, that are going to be wonderful.

Okay, I can't wait to find out. Well, you

know, Gary, as you, you know, you've been riding bicycles your

whole life. But, you know, I can clearly you've got a passion for

it. But I think you have a passion for like, it's good for

people, right, you know, so kind of how do you see one being good

for us at an individual level, but then, you know, let's talk

about how this connects to business in our economy. And as,

as our economy is growing, as companies are growing as

companies are moving here, I think this matters, talk a

little bit about all that, you know, sort of magic sauce there.

Well, we've seen it in real time, you know, in this

region. And specifically Bentonville, Bella Vista where,

if you want to talk about, you know, it's it's definitely a

quality of life initiative, when you build access to nature. I

mean, the studies have shown that, if you just get out in

nature, it's a benefit for your mental health. And it's a it's a

form of getting active. So those two things together, are

powerful. And if you have a good quality of life, then people

will want to be part of your community. So we've started to

see people move to the region, to be near the trails, in some

cases, they're moving here without a job. And we're seeing

businesses that are attracted to that kind of influx of young

talent, talent of all ages. And so we have seen businesses, and

we've been courting businesses in the outdoor industry in the

cycling industry. Because they see that as a, you know, you can

certainly bring in talent and retain talent, if you have a

community that people want to be part of. And that's simple. When

I moved here, 20 years ago, I moved to Bella Vista 20 years

ago, with my career at Walmart. And I wanted to move here, I

knew it was a good place because I just grew up there, up the

road in Joplin. I knew this was a wonderful community. But

people outside this region don't understand what we have here.

And it was a tough sell, to get people to move here. But now

with the reputation of this outdoor lifestyle, with trails

on every corner, that you can jump on. I've had so many people

come to me on the trails and say we moved here. Third visit, in

the first visit, we were blown away, came back with a family

third visit we looked at real estate and bought it. That story

happens all the time. And I would have laughed if somebody

told me 20 years ago that was going to be a story here.

Because it wasn't.

Yeah. But it certainly is today. There's no

doubt about that. Well, you know, as you as you as you think

about how do you see how do you see that whole economy around

cycling developing you started to mention it you started to say

businesses are starting to wrap around right you know, there's

services, there's bike shops, like as you're looking at the

future of what that economy you think is going to look like in

Northwest Arkansas, give us a little bit of a sneak peek you

know in Gary's mind of how you see this continuing to develop.

It's already started, there's no secret you

know, we have Eddyline Kayaks moving from Seattle their

headquarters here you know, Allied Bicycles is in Rogers

they're building high end, carbon fiber, mountain bikes,

How cool is that? And Professor Jon Johnson here, is focused on

gravel bikes, road bikes. Victoria Tire their US

headquarters is here. Rapha, you know, the apparel company is

headquartered here. There's the continues to be outdoor apparel

companies pop up. I mean, it's we were, we were courting the

rest of the industry, you know, Specialized Bicycles has an

Experience Center. YT Bikes is going to have one of their

experience centers they call a YT Mill. It's going to be a

state of the art showcase where you can come in and look at

their products and demo their products. And they've got some

of the more affordable high end bicycles you can get. It's an

online business but you'll be able to come to Bentonville and

try out one of their bikes before you order it online. You

could actually come here on a weekend, demo one of their bikes

on a day and then go back over to their location and just have

one shipped to your house, that's going to continue to

evolve. And again, as we bill and the Ledger, have you seen

the Ledger office building I mean, that's built. It's the,

it's the world's first bikable building six or six stories tall

and you can ride your bike to every floor. And that has been

filled up with different bike industry, USA Cycling has moved

to headquarters here where their our Olympic mountain bike

hopefuls are going to be training in this region. People

for Bikes has a headquarters here and they're helping us

really master plan how to get people to ride to work on bikes.

And the story goes on so yeah, we are we are becoming a center

of excellence for for bicycling and trails. There's a Bicycle

Technician Program at the community college in Bentonville

at NWACC. And we're just getting ready to launch a trail builders

trade school in Bentonville at NWACC that Dr. Bollinger is

spearheading and we've made some partnerships with the the EU

program that they're trying to build over there. There's

several countries in Europe and Scandinavia that have been

working together to build trail building curriculum. And it's

because trail buildings kind of wild west, but there's gonna be

credentials and certifications to be a trail builder. And they

are partnering with us because they've kind of ran into a

little bit of headwinds on their curriculum. And so we're going

to work together with them and build a universal, you know,

trail building curriculum and certification. And it'll be

based out of Bentonville.

outdoor industries and engaging students and thinking about

careers in the outdoor industry, which is another great fit to go

alongside what you guys are doing.

There are so many kind of synergies happening now. It's

hard to even keep up with it. But what is it what is exciting

is, you know, that grand experiment that Tom and Steuart

are doing are doing in Bentonville, and in surrounding

areas have grown to where other communities in Arkansas are

doing it themselves, just because they can see it works.

And building trail and, and getting people active.

What about this whole gravel scene that's

happening, as, and that's kind of, seems to have really been

developing as of the last several years. But getting more

and more popular.

I used to ride gravel roads to get to a trail,

you know, back when I was growing up, but it's amazing,

it's and it has become a phenomenon. And we have a we

have a you know, registration for a gravel event they sell out

in minutes.

Really?

You know, like our Little Sugar event in October

sold out quickly. But anyway, it's just, it's just a way to

get out and it's it's social, where you can ride side by side

with your friends and ride to another town and get lunch and

see the backwoods, you know, by bike and it's and in some cases,

some of the riders may be not quite ready to go off road on a

mountain bike. So it's a good starting point. And others are

pure, you know, endurance motorheads that just want to go

out and ride 100 miles on back country and not have to worry

about the high speeds of a highway. But man, you can see

the most beautiful spark parts of the parts of the state just

by riding your gravel bike and in one of the one of our best

experiences is the Arkansas High Country route. The Adventure

Cycling's route and now that's a 1000 mile loop around the best

parts of the state.

It is amazing now what you can see and the

beauty that you can see in Northwest Arkansas on a gravel

bike and other parts of Arkansas too I know there's I haven't

ridden it but I know there's a ride a gravel ride that happens

down near Helena I think yeah, which is completely differently

landscape but has a unique beauty of its own.

Well, I didn't understand how, how great that

area is for gravel riding until I you know, Ted Hergert and

Martin Smith from Martins from Bird Eye. And Ted's in Jonesboro

and they kept telling me about the Crowley's Ridge experience

and I didn't I just knew that over there you're gonna be

riding in the grids of farmland on gravel. And it's, you know,

can't be that exciting, but they convinced me to come down there

we rode from Jonesboro to Helena on Crowley's Ridge, which is a

really unique like two mile walk, you know, it's in the

middle of that delta flat farmland, but it's a two mile

wide, basic, rolling hillside that's eroded over the years,

but it's remained. So you're riding through canopy and you're

going through these small towns that have wonderful cafes, and I

discovered fried pies there. And every 10 miles you can get a

fried fried pie. But we rode from Jonesboro into Helena and

and then rode on into Clarksdale, Mississippi on the

levee. And that was a wonderful trip and so, but what else was

happening from Helena, the Delta Heritage Trail, which is an old

rail bed, it's being created into an 86 mile, rail to trail

you'll be able to leave Helena, jump on it and ride Arkansas

City, you'll be able to cross the White River and the Arkansas

River on these giant, old railroad bridges that are going

to be reconditioned, and there'll be a way to a hut to

hut plan for that on the way so you'll be able to really

eventually ride Crowley's Ridge from the Missouri State line all

the way to Arkansas City.

Really great to see, you know, this, I guess

exploding throughout Arkansas. I think that's the one thing that

I love. I love seeing about it. And you know, it's had a

substantial economic impact, at least I know you've been able to

measure it, I think and in our region. Tell us a little bit

about that.

Well, just recently the University of Arkansas did

their report. And it's $157 million annually of just

economic impact in the in the Northwest Arkansas two county

region. And that's just driving the business of bringing people

here to ride bikes on trails, and then local businesses being

enhanced by people riding bikes and getting active. And it's

real dollars. And we started seeing, you know, the people

from out of town, like I said, when we started having 12 or

more miles and Bentonville, that's when we started seeing

these bike racks on cars with license plates from outside the

region. And we started really understanding hey, this is this

is bringing people in so that as the miles, you know, continued

to add on and it became more of a destination. We saw more and

more out of towners come in they, they're spending real

money here. So it definitely is an economic impact to the

community.

Yeah, and you're starting to see you know, more

hotels in Bentonville being built and more restaurants. As

you said, the the synergies are a little bit hard to even keep

up with.

You know, people ask me sometimes what are they

building over there? I don't know. They're building quicker

than I can keep up. But you know, when I first moved to

Bentonville, or to Bella Vista and worked in Bentonville,

Station Cafe was a burger joint on the square. And that was it.

You know, there's nothing else to really do on the square and,

and now it's, it's a model for downtown revitalization and,

and, you know, when we were out there working on that first few

miles of trail it slaughter pen in Bentonville. With Tom he had

his vision, he wanted to revitalize the downtown as part

of this whole mountain bike. So he got it early, he knew what he

was wanting to do, and did it with the help of the community.

And the community, you know, if it wasn't for the community,

buying in and entrepreneurs jumping in and helping and, you

know, Tim Robinson starting Phat Tire Bike Shop, you know, in

2009 or 2008. You and as the trails grew so did his business,

and that's, that's, that's all part of it, you know, just

people having the vision to jump in and be part of the growth and

it's, it's really been fun to see,

It has been a you've been really a huge part

of that development. You know, one one thing, Gary, I'd love

your thoughts on for our students, you know, so at the

Walton College, you know, we'll have, oh, let's say, you know,

over 8,000 students in the Walton College and you know,

there's probably 32 ish 1000 at the University of Arkansas, and

many of them from here, but many not, and many might not have

grown up riding bicycles, you know, and they might be looking

at all the trails around and thinking, like, alright, where

do I start? How do I how do I jump in to this to this

ecosystem? What would you what advice would you give them?

Well, the first thing is rent a quality bicycle.

You know, you don't want to ruin your experience by maybe

starting out on the wrong piece of equipment, but rent a quality

bicycle. I know you, you guys rent them here at the University

at UREC. There's bike shops are all around the region that you

can go in and spend 40, 50, 60 bucks just to try it out. Or

borrow a friend's you know, it's even easier. But just give it a

try. Get some instruction early. You know, if you get out and

give it a try, hire a coach to teach you good habits first. And

then it'll be a lifelong sport. And that's what I like about

cycling and mountain biking. It's a lifelong sport. You know,

I'm 40 years older than my son and so we go on trips together

and ride bikes. Because it's a lifelong sport. He's getting a

lot better than me, but I'm still able to keep up.

I bet. Well, you know, as you maybe even broaden

it out a little bit, last question for you, again,

thinking about our students, and as you look back at your entire

career of, you know, being involved in what's happened in

cycling in Bentonville, and the state, and then 30 years at

Walmart, couple of lessons learned that you would say, if

you're, if you're a student today at the Walton College that

you'd give them some advice.

Well, what has worked for me and made me

successful, or at least happy, is, have ambition, but also

enjoy where you're a in life. I saw so many people that weren't

happy in a long career, because they were never satisfied at

what they're doing. And so I think that was my secret is,

enjoy the moment, what you're doing and try to be the best you

can be and things happen. Advancement happens if you're,

if you're positive, and you're, you know, you're doing a good

job of what you're doing and don't lament the fact that

you're not able to make the next step quickly. That's been really

my success in at least secret to life, but also just having the

confidence and just try new things. I mean, my, you know,

kind of make your own luck, you know, be you know, hard work and

and opportunity, you know, creates, creates good luck. And

you can't do enough of that.

Well, you know, say yes to opportunities, be

present, work hard, do your best and the opportunity that's in

front of you, I think it's wonderful advice.

10 years of volunteerism, you know, got me

to my role, but it was passion, you know, that I enjoyed doing,

didn't expect it to turn into anything, because there wasn't

such a job there, but it worked out. But then I would just, I

would just finally say, you know, this whole idea about

bringing mountain bike trails to town, bringing access to

outdoors to town, was a successful formula. And same

things happening with paddling. You know, we have 96,000 miles

of rivers, creeks and streams in this state. And Stewart Nolan

who started the Arkansas Canoe Club back in the mid 70s is

helping lead that effort to bring paddling to town. So what

about Little Sugar paddling down it in Bentonville? Bella Vista?

Or what about, you know, the White River paddling into

Fayetteville. So making it easy, make you know, lower the

intimidation factor getting more kids and first timers out on the

water. That's all part of the the secret formula is make it

easy bring it to town. That way people don't have to make a

decision on a weekend to go somewhere two hours away.

Well, Gary, thanks for all you've done for

for our community in Northwest Arkansas for our state and for

for all the businesses that are benefiting and for all the

people that are benefiting so deeply appreciate you. Thank

you.

Well, thanks for having me.

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

joining us for this captivating conversation. To stay connected

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