Jetboil has been on a rapid growth curve for the past three years, grabbing market share from many of its competitors in the backcountry cooking segment of the outdoor market and re-inventing the stove category. According to info collected by SportScanINFO, Jetboil’s market share in backpacking stoves increased from 12% in 2005 to 33% in 2006. The Jetboil PCS sold more units than any other stove sold through retailers who report to SportScanINFO.

This growth has happened so quickly that the company began looking for help on the senior management team six months ago. Last week, Jetboil CEO Perry Dowst hired Chris Lathrop as the company’s new VP of sales. For the past 15 years, Lathrop was managing principle of Lathrop Associates, LLC, a sales agency in New England. The agency has represented the Mountain Hardwear brand from its founding.

“Three years ago Dwight Aspinwall and I were just getting started and we were two guys with a vision for a category that we felt was really under-developed. We’ve come a long way in those three years and a lot of the things we did in the early days really don’t scale as we move forward. We have some core capabilities in product development and product creation, so we felt the need to balance those with the same kind of capabilities on the sales and business development side,” Perry told The BOSS Report. “I feel like we made some pretty solid decisions early on and our growth is a testament to that, but as we enter the next phase, there are some new factors we needed to look at. Solid decision making on the sales side is really what we we’re after.”

Moving into this new role was a major decision for Lathrop. “This is certainly a big change for me and one I did not take lightly. I spent the last fifteen years building a successful sales agency, working with Mountain Hardwear from day one,” Lathrop said. “Actually, how this whole thing started was I got a call form Jack Gilbert, the founding president of Mountain Hardwear. I’ve known Jack ever since his days with Sierra Designs and he is currently a board member at Jetboil. I have known him long enough and have respect for him so I followed up and started talking with Perry.”

Lathrop sees the primary short-term opportunities for the Jetboil brand coming from its current distribution channels and its current product line. Longer term, the company is looking at new product options to fuel more growth and diversify the company, including some opportunities that may move Jetboil into new channels of distribution.

Internationally, Jetboil already has most countries covered in Europe and a portion of Asia with various distributors. Jetboil is currently reviewing these relationships to ensure they are the right ones for their respective regions.

“Looking around here, Jetboil is facing a lot of the same issues that any young company faces – building brand recognition, looking at the systems and processes that the business uses and evolving those processes, growing and trying to expand the resources within the company. It’s really all about moving the ball forward,” said Lathrop. “Basically every facet of the business, from sales to marketing to manufacturing, is a play in motion. That’s really going to be the fun part about this, working with Perry to make it all work together.”

Longer term, Perry sees moving the company into realms beyond what the PCS and GCS address currently. However, at the same time, he sees continued opportunity in its current category. He said, “Without giving awat too much, we feel that a lot of our best work is still to be done.”