Montbell Chairman Isamu Tatsuno described the past 50 years as a time when he 'converted my favorite things into business.' The company, founded in Osaka in 1975, has grown into a leading Japanese outdoor gear maker. Tatsuno's mountaineering experiences have shaped its product development.
Isamu Tatsuno was born in 1947 in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. He started climbing mountains in junior high school, scaling 1,125-meter Mt. Kongo every weekend during Japan's first trekking boom. He aspired to become a mountaineer living off his expertise in nature.
As a first-year high school student, Tatsuno was inspired by Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer's book on conquering the north face of Switzerland's Eiger, thinking, 'I want to do the same sometime in the future.' After graduating, he tackled famous rock walls nationwide while working at a sporting goods shop. In 1969, at age 21, he summited Eiger's north face, becoming the world's youngest to do so despite near-misses with avalanches and rocks.
Six years later, he quit his trading company job and founded Montbell on August 1, 1975, in a 23-square-meter room in Osaka's Nishi Ward. The first year was tough; he survived by producing shopping bags for a friend's supermarket. The next year, he created lightweight, warm, quick-drying chemical fiber sleeping bags using a new DuPont material, which sold rapidly. This convinced him that 'if we make the kind of products we ourselves want, they will be accepted.'
From there, Montbell developed thousands of innovative products using advanced materials, expanding to canoes, bicycles, camping gear, and ski equipment. Today, it offers over 6,000 items, operates 133 stores in Japan and abroad, employs more than 3,000 people, and reports ¥160 billion in annual sales. 'The situation came about as a result of having fun. I never imagined this,' Tatsuno said.
Now 78 and serving as chairman after stepping down as president, he promotes outdoor activities to revitalize rural areas, collaborating with local leaders. He also edits the climbers' magazine Gakujin, holds positions as a specially appointed professor at Kyoto University and visiting professor at Tenri University. Following the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake and 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, he mobilized outdoor enthusiast volunteers for aid. 'Life is a journey to find a place you feel comfortable to live in. For me, Montbell is the place where I can do what I want to do as a job,' he said, vowing to stay active.