Outfitters Supply still has the rustic storefront it started with in 1986 in a building off U.S. 2 in Columbia Heights.

Most passers-by wouldn’t imagine it now is the headquarters of an international business that manufactures and distributes high-end livestock packing equipment to outlets such as Cabela’s and Murdoch’s.

Some packing gear even is used by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

This is the business that Russ Barnett built.

For about the first 10 years, Barnett bought products from other manufacturers and sold them at the Columbia Heights retail store.

Then he discovered and developed his talent for inventing, modifying and manufacturing packing equipment — saddles, panniers, rifle scabbards, saddle packs and much more.

“I kind of had this vision of it taking off. But we had to start manufacturing to do that. That was the whole key,” Barnett said.

It all started with customer complaints about a saddle pack, made by a Midwest manufacturer, that tended to slide off horses.

“I said, ‘We’ve got to make something that works,’” Barnett recalled.

Barnett studied the product and the problem, came up with his own improved design and made a prototype that went to a game warden out of Libby.

He started manufacturing the packs and since then he has sold thousands of them, along with developing other items as part of Outfitters Supply’s bread-and-butter product line, TrailMax.

Acquiring 400 wholesale dealers in the United States, Europe, Australia and Canada, getting into top-flight retail stores and ramping up production was a gradual process.

Barnett recalls trying to sell one product to a major outdoors retailer that rejected his proposed price outright. He proposed a lower price and was rejected again. He then contacted a Korean representative of a company with the capability to manufacture the product.

They did, and he was able to propose a price to the retailer that was roughly half of his original proposal.

The retailer readily accepted the product, and since then most of Outfitters Supply’s products have been manufactured in China, a country that Barnett visits about twice a year for inspection purposes.

“It’s hard to manufacture in the United States and make money,” Barnett said, adding that manufacturing overseas has allowed for profits that support higher salaries and better benefits for his seven local employees.

Some of the higher-end specialty products still are made in the shop additions behind the retail store on U.S. 2.

His great-grandparents homesteaded in the Choteau area around 1889. Barnett, 62, first moved to Kalispell from California at age 4 with his family traveling in a livestock truck that was fitted with cots.

“That was Montana in those days,” he said, adding that his dad was a livestock packer who introduced him to creative problem solving. “He made his own pack saddles.”

Barnett’s family moved back to California when he was 12, and he returned to the Flathead and opened Outfitters Supply in 1986 at the age of 36. Naturally, he became an accomplished livestock packer himself, spending most of his trail time in the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

“I had a lot of products to field test,” he said.

Barnett found himself a mentor in well-known Polson leatherworker Jack Welch, who died about 15 years ago at age 102.

Even at the end of his life, Welch told Barnett that he was still “learning from leather every day.”

Barnett said he and Welch didn’t do a lot of work together, but he visited him to get just the smallest tips about the craft.

“I’m not an artist. ...  I’m more of a mechanic,” Barnett modestly says of his leatherwork skills. Indeed, his skills go beyond leatherwork, getting into many other types of materials.

One of his best-selling rifle scabbards is made from Cordura fabric, and a hot-selling bear-proof pannier box has a modified TrailMax design. Previous box designs had lids that were secured by multiple screws. Barnett’s design involves a sliding lid that is secured with one latch.

Barnett even has produced packs for the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan.

About two years ago, the brother of a former employee who was a soldier in Afghanistan contacted Barnett, inquiring about the possibility of getting saddles and panniers for donkeys that were used on patrols.

Barnett whipped up a design that would fit, and the soldier’s Army Cavalry unit proposed taking up a collection to pay for the donkey rigs. Barnett would have none of that.

“We said, ‘Hey, this is the least we can do,’” Barnett said. “We sent them four outfits free of charge.”

The soldiers wrote back, thanking Barnett and reporting that the packs worked great.

“That was pretty cool,” he said.

Barnett is quick to share credit for the success of Outfitters Supply with loyal employees, singling out Lynn Foster, a 15-year employee who handles international business; Ruth Collins, who has been with the company for 13 years heading up the manufacturing department; and Kevin Arnold, who has handled daily operations at the Columbia Heights store for the last five years.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by email at jmann@dailyinterlake.com.