For spring, 2006, Dana packs will become Marmot packs. Marmot stated that the “DNA” of Dana Design will be melded with the aesthetics of Marmot. Familiar Dana components like Arc Flex and Arc Energy and Dana styles like the Terraplane, Glacier, Bridger and Bomb will carry forward. But the entire collection is now consolidated under the Marmot brand and is reengineered to be simpler, lighter, cleaner and more focused.

Marmot also stated that the Dana brand had been loosing market share under K2 Sports ownership. “The brand languished after Dana Gleason left ,” said Marmot spokesperson John Cooley. “We made a couple of runs at rebuilding it, but there was a real conflict of resources. It wasn’t so much a financial decision, rather it was distracting people.”

Cooley listed a series of inefficiencies created by building the two brands separately, including confusion with the sales force, distribution problems, separate workbooks, separate trade show booths, and sales management problems. Cooley also stated that Dana Designs had solid name recognition with the old school, but without a substantial investment it had no cache with the new-school.

Bringing the Dana’s technology into Marmot branded packs, and marmot technology into Dana’s Designs seemed to make sense for the company. “Marmot has never done big packs,” Cooley said. “We began to play with the Dana packs and bring some Marmot technology into the design.”

Cooley went on to say that if it makes sense to phase out some of these components in favor of more efficient designs, Marmot will tae that route. But for now Dana Designs will be branded as a component of Marmot packs much like “Intel Inside” is branded in the computer industry. Marmot has no intentions of selling the Dana name or trademarks in the near future.