Roger Furst, one of the co-founders of Eastern Mountain Sports retail chain, passed away in Sherman, TX, at the age of 78.
In the early 1960s, Furst, a lawyer at the time in Denver, met Alan McDonough, a local hotel manager, and the two began hiking and fishing along the streams of the Colorado Rockies. Finding themselves frustrated by the chore of carrying bulky equipment on their treks, the two began searching for manufacturers of lightweight backpacks, hiking boots, sleeping bags and camp stoves. Finding a burgeoning market for lightweight outdoor gear, they decided to open a store although they chose to do so in the northeast give the particular lack of outdoor stores in the region.
Their first store opened in Wellesley, MA, in 1967 was called the Mountain Shop. Within a year, Eastern Mountain Sports had a 10,000-square-foot store in Wellesley, becoming the largest outdoor retailer in New England. The EMS Climbing School in North Conway, N.H., now the oldest rock-climbing school in the Eastern United States, also opened in that year.
Will Manzer, the current chief executive of Eastern Mountain Sports, said the two bought ice-climbing gear, mountain-climbing gear, rock-climbing gear, backpacking and backcountry skiing equipment from Europe and in the U.S. In the’70s, EMS started making its own equipment.
“All I can say that I haven’t said already is that I wish I would have been here when he came to the office in Peterborough to introduce himself to me,” Manzer told the BOSS Report. “I was unfortunately out at the time. I was here when Alan, his former partner, came to see me. Alan had his son with him that day and he was able to share some of the special moments in the early days of Eastern Mountain Sports. Those early moments included reminiscing about what a great partner and friend Roger had been. Alan was able to make the claim very recently, in a moment of affectionate jest that he taught Roger everything he knew about fishing.”
He added, “The outdoor industry had its beginnings with the wanderlust and passion for special places that folks like Roger Furst blessed all of us with.”
Furst and McDonough sold Eastern Mountain Sports in 1979 when it had 19 stores. It now has 66 stores in 13 states. After several changes of ownership, Manzer along with a private-equity firm acquired EMS in 2004.
Furst is survived by three sons, Jason, Edward and Brandon; two daughters, Heidi Furst and Kirsten Brenna; a brother, Edward; two sisters, Diane Hertzfeld and Marilyn Furst; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren, according to the New York Times. His marriages to Estelle Ginn and Martha Wheeler ended in divorce.
Furst invested in several other businesses, including 24-hour photo shops, after EMS was sold. In his later years, Jason Furst told the Times, his father “kept camping and skiing, downhill and cross-country, anywhere from the Northeast to Colorado to Canada.”
