“I don’t know if tourists actually have as much of an effect on the values of Bend as much as Bend has an effect on the values of the tourists that come to visit us.” — Dan McGarigle

Pine Mountain Sports aims to be more than a place for outdoor gear and rentals. Owner Dan McGarigle is on a mission to make the store a connector, a community leader, and a force for good that creates an impact far beyond leisure.

Through the business, he’s trying to make it easier to support the community by connecting the people who want to help to the non-profits that need help. Each year, Pine Mountain Sports supports one charity through its Community Ambassador Program, whether in health, education, food, housing, or something else, and rallies the outdoor community to support it. This initiative encourages both visitors and residents to contribute to Bend as it grows.

Dan started the program after realizing that Pine Mountain Sports has visibility and outreach opportunities that individuals don’t often have. “It’s up to us on where we want to steer it, what direction we want to take it towards, and how we want to utilize our resources and where,” he explains. It’s not only a local business, it’s also a neighbour, and Dan sees that as a responsibility to support everyone around them. For him, this is a choice that every business owner can make simply by asking, “How can we help?”

When visitors support Pine Mountain Sports, they also help fuel the team’s efforts to help the community. No matter where people come from, Dan believes that what they bring to Bend during their visit is what matters. In a place where care, openness, and inclusivity are the norm and where so many special interest groups work on important issues, he thinks Bend influences visitors to take part in its values.

For Pine Mountain Sports’ part, it’s helping to make Bend a better place for everyone.

This episode, you’ll also learn:

• How Pine Mountain Sports became a conduit for community support.
• About how the Bend community values inclusivity for both residents and visitors.
• A healthy way for locals to think about the challenges of busy tourism seasons.
• How Bend influences the values of visitors.

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Show notes

Community Ambassador Program  –A fundraising initiative by Pine Mountain Sports to help meet the needs and demands of social services in Central Oregon. 

Mount Bachelor – The largest ski and snowboard resort in the northwest United States, located in Bend, Oregon. 

Pine Mountain Sports – An outdoor gear, service, and rental shop in Bend, Oregon with a community service program.

Visit Bend – The destination management and marketing organization for Bend, Oregon.

Episode transcript

Dan McGarigle: The biggest thing that we’ve learned over the years is that most of the people that we talked to really had a hard time figuring out how, not that they didn’t want to participate, but how to participate by vetting nonprofits, by working with organizations for years and years, we’ve actually taken that work out of the way for a lot of folks.

Sara Raymond de Booy: Hello and welcome to Travel Beyond where we partner with leading destinations to bring you inspiring solutions to the greatest challenges facing community and the planet. I’m Sarah Raymond de Booy, Associate Creative Director at Destination Think. I’m recording from Seattle, Washington on Coast Salish land, specifically that of the Duwamish, Suquamish, Stiligwamish, and Muckleshoot people.

David Archer: And I’m David Archer from Destination Think. I’m recording from Daajing Giids, British Columbia, a village in Haida Gwaii, the territory of the Haida Nation. On this show, we look at the role of travel and highlight destinations that are global leaders. We talk to the changemakers who are addressing regenerative travel through action in their communities, often from the bottom up.

Sara Raymond de Booy: And we’re actively looking for the best examples of efforts to regenerate economies, communities, and ecosystems. So be sure to reach out if you have a story to share with us. 

David Archer: Well, Sarah, Dan McGarigle is today’s guest and he’s been a Bend resident for almost three decades. And for most of that time, he’s been the owner of Pine Mountain Sports, a local outdoor sports shop that provides bike and ski rentals among many other services.

And Dan is a community minded guy, and he’s trying to use his business for purposes that transcend recreation. For example, he’s noticed that many people want to help out the local non profits, they just often don’t know where to start. He tries to make it easy to get involved, and he’s vetting non profits, whether it’s in health, education, food, housing, or something else.

And um, it’s something that I’ve noticed elsewhere that there’s a gap in tourism as well. And Dan mentions this, a gap between visitors who want to help out and nonprofits looking for help. Sometimes it seems like every place has some organizations and some people within them, like Dan, who are connectors.

And that’s partly why we’re speaking with him today. Like eliminating those gaps is kind of Dan’s superpower. And it seemed to me like he talks about his business as though it’s a community space, just as much as it is a retail shop. Would you agree? 

Sara Raymond de Booy: Yeah, definitely. And I know what you’re mentioning beforehand is the community ambassador program, right?

Yeah. They support a charity each year, usually, usually unrelated to outdoor sports, but that money comes from the outdoor community. Um, and it’s pooled together therefore from visitors and residents and supports Bend as it grows. So I really admire the creativity when businesses within a destination are one thing on the surface, but then they take it upon themselves to have a bit of a secondary mission that complements it.

So this is a little bit of a different example, but it makes me think of when places use their physical space in a creative way when it’s not necessarily needed for its primary purpose. So like hotels that turn their lobbies into co-working spaces during the time between checkout and check in. So it’s a good benefit to the community because it’s just an empty space otherwise.

And it’s also a win-win because the hotel gets income from day passes and the coffees purchased. And otherwise they wouldn’t have anything coming in, um, in that timeframe, a lot of the time. And so I think the spirit of what Dan has set out to do is a bit of a win, win, win for him, the customers and the community.

And you can tell he has, you know, a 4. 9 Google review with over 900 views reviews. So he’s obviously created a very unique experience that definitely makes an impression on customers, whether they’re from Bend or not. 

David Archer: Yeah, and you’ll be able to hear that in the interview, just his sort of mindset and attitude towards customer service.

It’s quite nice. And you can’t argue with that evidence of all the reviews. It shows the longevity of the business’s mission and the impact it’s having. Dan has been in Bend for a while, as I mentioned, and in the interview, he comments on the rapid growth Bend has had recently. And he shares what I would call a mature mindset about living in a busy destination as well.

And it’s not very complicated. He thinks about all the positive things that travelers bring without allowing himself to get too disappointed that, for example, it might be hard to get a dinner reservation in the summer. And this connects back to our first episode where we talked about how tourists are sometimes scapegoats for local problems.

But Dan just doesn’t accept those bad vibes. How far do you think a healthy mindset like that can take those of us who live in busy destinations while, you know, still we need to recognize the flaws that need to improve? How do you think about that balance? 

Sara Raymond de Booy: I think it’s definitely an admiral, an admirable mindset, and also one that hopefully inspires other residents if that’s, you know, coming through when they’re in the shop.

But it’s, it’s also a tough question when you mention it with balance. I think a challenge would be making this positive mindset part of the culture among residents and people like Dan hold a key role in making that happen. But even with the best intentions, I can see patience among residents in some places, maybe wearing thin toward the end of a peak season.

You know, when at the beginning you’re, you know, you know, it’s fine. It’s just, you know, a couple, couple busy months where I can’t get a reservation. And then by the end of the summer, you’re like, I just really want this pasta, you know? Um, so, you know, a lot of, if it’s the best time to be experiencing where you live during peak season, you don’t just want the sloppy seconds of like when the best time is over. Um, and yeah, so, but then again, it might not only be tourists grabbing those restaurant reservations, for example. Um, so then we’re back to the scapegoat conversations because it could very well be that that’s when the residents want to be out of their house.

And that’s when the menu is best at this restaurant and stuff like that. So who knows who’s filling those tables? I do think part of this interview probably opens up a whole new topic about what a place can do to make sure locals are still able to, enjoy somewhere they might be crowded out of or something they might even be priced out of.

It kind of reminds me of topics like we cover with Fogo Island and where residents have opportunities throughout the year to have a complimentary staycation at the end. I think it’s a special, um, program that they’d done to mark their, um, their anniversary. So I don’t know if that goes on all the time.

I think this program is going until 2026 or so. Um, but it’s kind of nice to be able to have gestures out there that take away a little bit of the impact of the peak seasons that people can still be enjoying and benefiting in the same way tourists can. 

David Archer: Yeah. And like you mentioned, it really benefits the businesses as well.

Uh, I’m thinking about, when I used to live in Victoria, BC, every year in the spring, I think there’s a week or two that’s kind of marked as, uh, be a tourist in your hometown. And so, you know, you can have discounted experiences at various places. And the reason that it’s, that it helps the businesses so much is that, you know, the locals are the ones recommending where visitors go.

So, you know, it’s just kind of a perfect fit that way. 

Sara Raymond de Booy: It’s not anything that’s you know, it’s not a completely foreign concept. I remember when I was a kid in Southern California, you know, Disneyland always had the Southern California rates, and I think they still do now for, for residents. I’m sure it’s a bit more expensive now.

Um, but it’s not a, it’s not a new concept. It’s just, you know, making sure that you’re leaving space and, and thinking about your residents when, um, you’re dealing with busy times. 

David Archer: Yeah, exactly. So now let’s go to our conversation with Dan McGarigle, who’s speaking with our colleague Josie Vandervelden. 

Dan McGarigle: My name’s Dan McGarigle. Um, I’m the founder for Pine Mountain Sports.

We’re located here in Bend, Oregon. Opened in, uh, April 15th of 2000. Been around for a minute. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Pine Mountain’s been around since 2000. When did you move here? 

Dan McGarigle: Uh, I moved here in May of 1995. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Quick math. How long have you lived here? 

Dan McGarigle: Uh, I’m coming up on 29 years. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Something must have brought you here. What makes Bend different from any other place in the U.S.? 

Dan McGarigle: I honestly think that people actually move to Bend for two reasons. Um, one, it’s the obvious one. It’s uh, accessibility to the outdoors. Um, even compared to most other mountain towns and communities. You know, to have a ski hill 20 miles away, to have world class mountain biking about a mile outside of town.

You know, I’ve, I’ve traveled around a bit and been to lots of other outdoor communities and it’s usually, hey, we’re going to go ski, it’s a 45 minute, it’s an, it’s a 60 mile drive, we’re going to get, we’re going to go mountain biking, let’s load the bikes onto the car and we’ll drive to the trails. So I really do believe accessibility to the outdoors.

Um, and then really on a societal level, I actually think a lot of the allure about Bend is that it feels like, and it’s the size of a community where individuals can make a difference and still be neighbors. You know, it’s not so big that everybody becomes, you know, a bit anonymous and you can actually come here and still feel like you live in a bit of a neighborhood and participate in the community.

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, we’ve seen that when we’re, people are asking, Oh, who else are you talking to? And everybody knows each other. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah, it is still a very small community. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, I love that. Did you think this was going to be your career path? 

Dan McGarigle: Uh, no, no. Um, that would almost entail me, uh, having thoughts that would develop into my future that would be well beyond my capabilities.

I actually, uh, used to, uh, work as a bike tech, uh, back in the early nineties. And then when I moved to Bend, it was the first place where when I told somebody, oh yeah, I work as a bike tech where I think I was actually met with a little bit of respect. And one of the first persons that I talked to actually said, wow, that’s awesome cause we need more bike tech, bike techs in town. And that really resonated with me of like, ooh maybe I’m on to something. Maybe this was a good idea to move here. 

Josie Van Der Velden: It’s always nice to, to feel that, oh, I’m, I’m doing something right instead of the opposite. 

Dan McGarigle: Well, and in ‘95, Bend really hadn’t quite identified itself as an outdoor town.

It was still reeling from the old mill closing. It was, I wouldn’t say that it was a very progressive economy by any, any, by any stretch of the imagination, but um, it was at a time I think when Ben was still trying to figure out what the next version of Bend was gonna be. So it was a really good time to move here. 

Josie Van Der Velden: a little bit about Bend and kind of what it stands for How would you describe Bend’s values?

Dan McGarigle: Oh, that’s that’s a good question. One, I would say community driven whether it’s outdoor activity-based, socially-based, human rights-based, whatever it might be. It seems like that there’s a group for just about everybody. Um, the other thing that I, that I always found interesting is that not being Caucasian.

Um, you know, I, I see myself, I’m half Japanese, half Irish. Um, whenever I check those little boxes, Asian, Asian American, whatever it might be. Is, is that even though Bend, especially when I first moved here, wasn’t a very ethnically diverse place, I’ve never, ever in my life, never experienced anything here that would seem that Bend wasn’t inclusive.

Uh, that, that it really wasn’t welcome to everybody. Yeah, so, I would think that, that sense of community. But also, there’s, there’s also that sense of, that it’s still not so big that small groups can’t make a difference or an individual can’t make a difference. And I think that’s a bit of that magic that still resonates through this community.

Um, and then also, because so, such a large amount of the population here isn’t from Bend, I think that people here actually realize that this is a choice. They chose to move here because of whatever reason that they thought it’d be a good place to call home. And, um, you know, they realize, most people I think here realize how special of a place Bend really can be or is most of the time.

Josie Van Der Velden: Do you think, like, Bend changes people to kind of have that shared value system, or it attracts like minded people almost organically that those shared values emerge. 

Dan McGarigle: I think it’s a combination of both. I really do. Um, I tell people that because we see people here from all over the country and in a lot of places, in a lot of times and instances all over the world that decided to move to Bend, I don’t really care that you moved here from somewhere, somewhere else.

I really care about who you are. What are you bringing to our community? Good energy, bad energy, a sense of indifference, whatever it is. But I think because, because Bend, generally speaking, seems to be so welcoming, a lot of the feedback that I get from people visiting is that most of the people here are, wow, everybody here is really nice.

It’s because everybody here is pretty happy with their choices to live in Bend. It, even when Bend was small and relatively inexpensive, it wasn’t easy, and it’s still not easy to live here, like lots of other mountain communities. You know, we were talking about living in Vancouver. Um, it’s not easy, but I always tell people the reason that it’s not easy is because it’s worth it.

It’s because, you know, you made that choice. And yeah, you’re gonna sacrifice along the way. Boy, you know, there are those times there when you do feel like, well, where else would I go? Bend to me is still a very, a very special, precious area. 

Josie Van Der Velden: You were talking with one gentleman earlier this week and he said, you know, my worst day in Bend is still my best day.

Dan McGarigle: Yeah, there’s a bumper sticker around here somewhere and it says, uh, my life is better than your vacation. And, uh, you know, I think that that’s kind of big headed, but at the same point in time, you know, every morning I wake up and I peek out my window and the first word out of my mouth every day is literally stoked.

Stoked to be here. I’ve lived other places. I love living here. 

Josie Van Der Velden: So, you come here, you’re a bike tech, your ears are perking up like, oh, we need some more bike techs around town. How did Pine Mountain Bikes come to be? 

Dan McGarigle: Sure, um, so, uh, Pine Mountain Sports got started in 2000, uh, actually by a, uh, previous bike shop that I used to work for.

They had the idea of somebody that was going to be their manager. A week before they opened the store, they fired that would-be manager, and uh, I walked in to work four days before Pine Mountain opened, and they said, we just fired our manager, we want you to go run Pine Mountain Sports. And at the time, I was probably year five or six into Bend.

I had been playing an awful lot. I would say that for my first five years here, my career might’ve not been on the highest of my priorities. Um, but when I, when this opportunity came to me and they said, hey, do you want to go run a business? It just, it really felt like a natural progression. And more importantly, I don’t think I could figure out a reason why I wouldn’t take the job.

So I took the job, um, ran it for that owner for three years. And after three years really realized that, uh, we were running their business and I wasn’t going to run anybody else’s business for much longer. I was probably going to run my own. So, uh, fortunately I was able to talk the previous owner into actually allowing myself and my wife to buy Pine Mountain Sports.

And that was in 2003. So she and I have now owned it for over 20 years. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Amazing. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah. Crazy. Crazy. Gosh. 

Josie Van Der Velden: I’m sure your idea of what you were trying to do and where you wanted to take it has changed a lot over the years right now. And, and for the last while, like what would you say is your mission? 

Dan McGarigle: Uh, quite honestly, our mission is to provide exceptional customer service and hospitality to everybody that comes into this building.

Um, and then also to be a resource to our greater community. And, you know, it’s funny how you said, you know, I’m sure it’s changed a lot. But from that first meeting of managing Pine Mountain Sports and sitting down with the owner and the managers of the other stores, they asked that same question. What do you want Pine Mountain to be?

And those words, I want it to be a resource to our entire community. And what that means is that it’s easy, I think, for businesses like ours to stay focused on the community that serves us. Bikers, skiers, outdoors enthusiasts, great group of people, you know, people that, that are very like minded. But when I look at that community, especially here in Bend, the outdoor community in Bend, generally speaking, doesn’t struggle.

Um, you know, we’ve got our, maybe we don’t have super nice cars, but we’ve got really nice gear, we’re getting outside, we’re having a lot of fun, we’re not missing meals, we’re not worried about our kids going to school and having clothes, we’re not worried about a lot of those things that we take for granted.

Where I know, and even knew then, that there’s a population here in Bend that doesn’t live that life. That never goes to Mount Bachelor. That doesn’t know what it’s like to go ride a mountain bike. And, um, this might sound a bit extreme, but I know that tonight in Bend, Oregon, there’s a mom living in a van, got two kids, and she’s trying to figure out how to get them to school tomorrow.

I know that that’s happening right now. So I think for us, that was part of about Pine Mountain sports and who we are. We have over the years partnered with lots of nonprofits, uh, that work to, uh, address the issues of uh, houselessness, accessibility to food, education, health care, uh, things along those lines, shelter.

And, um, for us, those are the, that’s the conduit that we have the opportunity to be. Is between these non profits and the people that they serve and the outdoor community and the people that we serve. We have the ability to share our community with those organizations and ultimately let people know, hey, here in Bend, if you’ve got a good, that’s great.

You know what else you gotta do? You gotta help out. You gotta pitch in. And a lot of times we’re here asking people for money to donate to nonprofits. It’s pretty hard when you tell people hey do you care about kids being able to go to school? Do you care about people having accessibility to health care?

Do you want to help feed people in our community? Um, it’s been a long time since I’ve had anybody tell me no, I don’t want to do that. The biggest thing that we’ve learned over the years is that most people most of the people that we talked to really had a hard time figuring out how, not that they didn’t want to participate, but how to participate.

And what we’ve learned over the years is that by vetting nonprofits, by working with organizations for years and years, we’ve actually taken that work out of the way for a lot of folks. We make it easy for them by literally saying, hey, here’s this organization over here. We’re going to support them for an entire year.

We want you to help us. And in a lot of ways, you know, and I think that speaks a lot to the ethos of the community, which is built on a foundation of the quality of the people that, that live here, is the first person I ever asked to donate $500 to an organization to help kids in foster care. The first reply they gave back was, well, tell me why I shouldn’t donate $1,000.

And we immediately like, okay, we’re on to something here. And so we’ve really utilized that our outreach, what relationships we have within the community to help others in the community that quite honestly will probably never meet them or know who they are. But we know over the years that we have helped kids stay in school.

We’ve helped keep lights on in people’s houses. We’ve helped feed people. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve helped out in a lot of ways that, that, uh, I like to think is built into the ethos of the community that we serve. You know, and I got to admit to give credit where credit’s due. It all comes from my mom. You know, she, when we were growing up, I didn’t come from a, you know, my mom worked really, really hard.

She’s a single mom struggling with two kids. You know, you can paint the picture pretty easy to see. And even during those times, my mom was always volunteering, always helping out. And she still is to this day. So, you know, when we come to a place like this and we have a vehicle like Pine Mountain Sports.

It’s up to us on where we want to steer it, what direction we want to take it towards, and how we want to utilize our resources. And where, yes, we could support ski teams and mountain bike clubs and things along those lines. I like to think that those organizations are probably going to be okay without us.

Let’s talk about moving the needle for people. Let’s work to help people. I always think one of the best things that you can actually do in your life is simply to give. 

Josie Van Der Velden: I feel like your mom and my mom had a lot in common. Um this, you know, what you’re describing, it kind of makes me think like you’ve got Pine Mountain Sports as a business, but then Pine Mountain Sports is also a neighbor.

You know, it’s that kind of mentality. Like we’re neighbors. We’re yes, we’re running a business, we’re making money, but like we’re also here to like support you and everyone around us. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah. I couldn’t have said it any better myself. Absolutely. I probably, it took me a couple of years to actually realize how many eyes are on us and how much outreach we have and opportunity we have because we’re a business. And, uh, over the years it’s, it’s been astounding to me the number of times that people have said, you know, that I’ve literally walked into my office and had checks sitting on my, on my desk from a random customer who said, hey, I saw you’re helping out Family Access Network.Here’s 500 bucks for them. Or why wouldn’t I give $1, 000? Or, I’m going to talk to my five poker buddies and we’re all going to pitch in and we’re all going to donate 200 bucks and we’re going to donate 1,000 bucks. There are good people everywhere. Um, you know, they just, I don’t know if they always make the news as much as they should.

Josie Van Der Velden: So Pine Mountain Sports obviously has a lot of community customers, probably also a lot of tourist customers, people coming through. Um, how does tourism support your programs, like the ambassador program and the giving back that you have, um, as part of your model? 

Dan McGarigle: You know, I would tell you that unfortunately folks visiting us from out of town, we really haven’t quite figured out how to engage them to support nonprofits here in Bend.

Of course, from time to time, there are those places where they can and it’s easy to. But, the way that I think that tourist dollars and visitors to our community actually do help us, is simply by coming in and supporting the business, by supporting the organization. They put gas in the tank. That allow us to take some of that fuel and drive it in different directions other than just bikes and skis and getting outside and having fun.

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, that’s a, that’s a really important factor. It’s like, if you as a business are minded, you know, like driven in a way towards a community than anything that’s helping you guys keep going. Just like feeds that, so important. Do you think that any business in anywhere in the world can do what you’re doing with your with the kind of giving back in the community support at the level you’re doing it?

Or is there something like about Bend that’s particularly, you know, fueling for that? 

Dan McGarigle: I think it’s a little bit of both. Um, quite honestly, I think any business and organization, to me, it really is up to the people in charge of that organization and the direction and the dedication that they have to participating, to finding the things that are dear to their hearts.

You know, for us, we’re really fortunate that we have this entire community that makes us say, oh, wow, how do we help? Whereas, you know, some folks are really focused on very specific ways that they want to help. And so as I think any business owner, quite honestly, can make the decisions to support their community in the way that they want to simply by making those choices, getting on the phone, building the relationships and asking that simple question, how can we help any nonprofit here in the United States will tell you immediately, well, this is exactly what we need.

But then on the other side of the coin, there is that part about Bend, you know, it’s a fairly affluent community, you know, generally speaking, people in Bend are doing fairly well. Generally speaking, and especially inside the outdoor community, people here are doing well. And then especially the people that come into our store.

You know, this isn’t an inexpensive place to come and go shopping. You know, anytime people come in and they’re like, oh, there’s something that I need. I always say, you know, the things that you need, they’re across the street at the grocery store, the stuff that you want, that’s what we do. But I would also tell you, as I started off in the conversation with, is that, I really do believe that part of the reason why people move here is because it still feels like a community Where you get to know your neighbors and you can participate and you can make a difference. I like to think that in some cases we just make it easy for folks to do that. Yeah, so I think we’re, I think we’re spoiled.

I think it’s a little bit of both going in our direction on that one. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Let’s chat a little bit about tourism. You mentioned the bumper sticker, you know, like there’s in any place that has a lot of tourism you get the growth you get the benefits you also get the challenges. Um as a business owner as a, as a member of the community what concerns you about tourism here?

Dan McGarigle: I don’t really know if I have concerns about tourism here. And some of that has to do a little bit with, you know, there’s that old adage about recognizing the things that you can change and the things you can’t. Yeah, we could, you know, provide an exceptional experience here at Pine Mountain Sports. And we’ve actually had customers come back and say, I came here four years ago.

You guys were so awesome. We really loved our time. We just moved here. We’ve heard that over and over again. Um, yeah. Do we draw people to our community? Absolutely. Could we be jerks? And, you know, literally vibe people out of town, we could probably do that, but that takes a lot of energy, and I don’t want that kind of energy around.

So, I don’t know if I necessarily have concerns about tourism here in Bend. Um, I would tell you that, on a personal level, the thing that I recognize is that when it is those tourist seasons, whether it’s holidays, major, you know, whether it’s like winter holidays, Christmas, New Year’s, whether it’s those, uh, three day or spring break weekends over the fall and winter, or as we get into all of summer.

Is Bend going to be busy? Yeah, it’s totally going to be busy. My wife and I, realistically, we almost don’t go out to dinner during the summer because getting a reservation in town is very difficult, but then I think it comes down to a choice. Do I want to be mad and grumpy because somebody else who’s visiting town is supporting my buddy’s restaurant and I can’t get in there tonight?

That’s my choice. And then I have to deal with that disappointment, that energy inside of myself. Whereas that if I just understand, hey, this is my choice to live here. These are the things that come along with living in a destination type of town. How I let it affect me and us is totally up to me. And I don’t want bad energy.

So yeah, I might get some takeout from time to time. Probably spend a little bit more time on the barbecue grill come winter, or come summertime. But on the other side of the coin, and to go all the way back to it, I’m not a single parent trying to figure out how to get my kids to school tomorrow. These are realistically, you know, not what I would necessarily call problems.

And now that I say that I don’t really have concerns. I should say this is that I do believe that because of the, I don’t know what you would call it, the invention of, uh, short term rentals, VRBOs, Airbnbs. Um, we have watched, uh, long term lease rates. And you know, and this isn’t news just to Bend, this is all across the country.

Um, get to the place where it’s making it very difficult for, uh, people that are new moving to town, uh, people that you might consider working class moving to town, but your bike techs, your waiters, your waitresses, even your school teachers, um, it’s really difficult for them to find, to find housing, to live here.

You know, we talked for literally maybe 15 years about, oh, you know, this is going to happen and then lo and behold, when it does. Even after talking about it for so long, there are still times when I’m a little surprised, but I shouldn’t be. You know, we saw the writing on the wall. I just don’t know if we really liked what was being written.

And in a lot of ways, as you know, as a business owner, as a homeowner here in Bend, am I stoked to see values rise? Sure I am. But also as a business owner in Bend, is it somewhat discouraging for the new folks that want to move to Bend, the people that didn’t get in 10, 12, 15 years ago when you could get in.

But I don’t know if you can necessarily blame that on directly on tourism. Um, but it has to have some effect on, on our cost of living here in town. But, but also to go kind of full circle with that whole thing. Like I said, I’m not so worried about people visiting and where they’re from. I’m just more so worried about who they are and what are they bringing into this community.

You know, and in a lot of ways, I think the kindness and the openness and the inclusivity that the community seems to put out into the world, I think that once people get here, they tend to understand, oh yeah, you know, when in Rome, you should do as the Romans do. In my career working literally behind this counter over here, I’ve probably had six or maybe ten times where you’ll ask somebody.

You know, they’ll walk up to the counter. Hey, how you doing today? Oh, I’m looking for this. I need this. I need this. I need this. Um, we’re in a, we’re kind of in a hurry. We’re doing this. And how do I get here? And, you know, they’re just kind of pushing their way through the conversation. And I’ll say, OK, hey, that’s great.

How are you today? And you can see them recognize the opportunity that you’re putting out there to connect with them. You know, yeah, we can have a transaction here, but instead of just having a little transactional conversation, why don’t we actually talk to each other like humans? And immediately, it’s so funny.

Anytime you ask that question the second time, You’ll see people kind of go, Oh, right. I’m great. I’m great. How are you? You know, just, you know, humanize things just a little bit. But, uh, I don’t necessarily have a lot of concerns about tourists because they’re going to keep coming. I can’t stop that. And I don’t think I’d want to stop that.

But at the same point in time, I do take it into mind that they help fuel Bend to be what Bend is today. And really the only choice that I have is, um, how do I want to, how do I want to handle that? How to respond to tourism in my life? 

Josie Van Der Velden: You know, it’s interesting when you use example of someone kind of just coming in and I need this, I’m doing this.

It’s like almost that reminder, like, don’t just come here, like be here. 

Dan McGarigle: It’s a great, as soon as you started saying that I was thinking the same thing. Yeah. You know, be here. You know, look around you, look at what people are doing. Look at how we’re treating each other. And I think in some ways, that’s actually the thing that works against Bend is people come here and everybody’s so nice because everybody’s so happy to be here.

And then they’re like, oh, I want to go live somewhere nice too. So, uh, you know, occasionally we still deal with pardon the expression, but that guy, but for the most part, you know, we’ve, I’ve watched Bend actually, um, smooth out a lot of edges. On people that have moved to town and they slowly just oh, okay put your guard down. Yes, we’re all on our own agenda, but it’s not always about us here.

There’s there’s there’s a we in Bend, Oregon as well 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, yeah, suddenly that guy’s guy with the bumper sticker now. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah, right. Yeah. Oh, yeah. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Okay. So what about? Yeah, I mean you’ve talked about kind of cost of living and just general connection human connection. What about the environment like, it’s such a big piece of of living here.

Um, tourism and the environment.

Dan McGarigle:. Yeah Sure. Um, it would be very hard for me to quantify how much tourism is literally affecting the environment around us. I’m sure that there are studies out there. I’m sure we can talk about, you know, tons of what, how many tons of trash were picked up out in the forest, how much traffic there was up to Bachelor this year versus last year, CO2 emissions, all of those things.

But I would also say that in some ways, Bend is really fortunate in that. Right now, and these are, this is probably one of the topics that you can go to any one of the finer breweries in Bend and start a very heated debate very quickly. But I do appreciate in some ways how the city is working to fill in before we expand urban growth, growth boundaries.

Um, the other part that I do think is a really big advantage to us is that we can’t build any further west. You literally run into, into Forest Service land and BLM land, and you’re just, you’re not going to get the keys to that castle. They’re not going to say, hey, yeah, go build your house out there anymore.

Yeah, and environmentally, sure, things have changed in Bend. But I think that also goes back down to the foundation about the people that live here and the groups that are here. Because when I think about everything from river usage, to trails, to mountains, to winter, to whatever it might be, there’s chances are there’s a special interest group that’s already focused on preserving those areas and works very diligently at it.

And then when you have an organization that’s been in town for so long, new people moving to Bend people that want to get involved, they’ll bring resources and dollars with them to support those nonprofits. Um, in a lot of ways, when I think about Bend, the first thing that comes to my head is, is that it hasn’t quadrupled in size since I’ve lived here, but it’s definitely tripled in size since I’ve been here.

And I don’t know much about city planning, but I’m gonna bet that there’s not a little program inside a city planner programs that say, if your town triples in 20 years, here’s how you plan for that. Cause it just doesn’t really happen. But the way that I’ve watched Bend progress and the way that we handle traffic, the way that we handle community and the way that we handle tourists.

I really do think that Bend’s done a pretty good job about it. You know, you can point at any one specific situation and say, well, this wasn’t handled well, and this wasn’t handled well. Everybody’s going to have their opinions, but in the big pictures of things, we didn’t screw it up so much that people stopped moving here.

And it sure seems like it’s still a very desirable place to live. So, you know, could things have gone better? Could we have made some better decisions? Undoubtedly so. But. Could we have also let this amount of growth completely cave in our community? Absolutely. And we haven’t. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Do you think that tourism, obviously, there’s a lot of money that goes into tourism.

There’s a lot of effort. Um, people’s voices get amplified within the kind of strategies and how you attract people and what message you’re putting out there. Do you think that tourism as a whole can help support the like evolution of the values and personality of a place for the good? 

Dan McGarigle: I don’t know, to be honest with you.

That’s a, I have done enough of these interviews and I’ve done a fair enough podcast and whatever it might be over my time here in Bend, where most of the questions that I get, that I get asked, I’ve already answered them before. That’s a question I’ve never had anybody ask me. So, off the top of my head, where I think that tourism, I don’t know if it necessarily affects the values of our community.

It definitely does affect the things that we have to pay attention to in the resources and the preservation of our community. I would tell you that the tourist dollars, the way that they fuel our economy, it certainly does fuel us. But does it really change our values? I don’t know. I mean, seriously, I’ve had, I’ve been asked a lot of questions about living in Bend and time in Bend, it certainly affects what we’re able to do here, literally from a monetary perspective.

Um, you know, tourists leave a lot of cash in a community, wherever they go. But value wise, what I would tell you is this, I don’t know if tourists actually have as much of an effect on the values of Bend as much as Bend has an effect on the values of the tourists that come to visit us. I would think for us, that’s, you know, you know, like I talked about how people will say, oh, we came here four years ago and we, gosh, we moved here.

Our values affected those people’s lives at the place that they actually made a really big change in their lives because they found something that they were attracted to. So I don’t know about the other way, about the way that tourism would affect our values, but I do know that our values definitely affect people that come and visit us.

I think that’s pretty cool. 

Josie Van Der Velden: So speaking of community, um, Visit Bend as the DMO here in the, in the area. How do you work with them as an organization in the community? How, yeah. How, how do you guys work together? 

Dan McGarigle: The ways that we work with Visit Bend these days are usually by invite or usually have things that they’re working on when they need, where they need help or input or perspective, like something like this early on, you know, I might, I might get ahead of myself here.

So, so quite honestly, you know, I wouldn’t say that we necessarily work with Visit Bend very often, whereas so much as we support what support, what they do when they ask us to, and there are things that align with our values. Um, but on the other side of the coin, I would be foolish to think that Visit Bend doesn’t support this business because it does.

When Visit Bend first came around and you probably know this better than I do what they’re probably 12 or 15 years old now, something like that. Their first thing that they really focused on was getting big outdoor sporting events here to Bend, whether that was big bike rides or big outdoor things going on or festivals or whatever coming to Bend.

And this was at a time when the community of Bend was saying, hey, let’s pump the brakes on all of this stuff. Because for the first couple of years, and this is if I can dust off my memory correctly for the first couple of years, visit Bend was really good about bringing these big outdoor events to Bend.

And all of a sudden, the community of Bend was like, ooh, hey, can we slow that down a little bit? And so to Visit Bend’s credit, they did. They realized that the mission that they had originally, where it was so warmly accepted by the community at first, the community actually voiced up and said, hey, can we pump the brakes? And Visit Bend did a really good job, I think about listening to their supporters into the community and changing their focus on more sustainability and preaching a message to people that are coming to Bend versus trying to get everybody to come to Bend. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Yeah, it’s a big difference there. What do you hope visitors can learn when they come into Pine Mountain Sports about, you know, like, what do you hope stays with them when they’re like, they have this experience? 

Dan McGarigle: Sure. Um, if there’s a perfect case for a customer experience inside of this store, it literally, I envision it this way. They get done. We tell them, thanks for coming in. They’re walking out the door. They all pile in their car. You hear the car door shut at a semi, you know, they all kind of shut it about the same time.

And whoever it is just speaks up and just says, man, that place was so awesome. Those people were so kind, so cool. Maya Angelou. People will forget what you do and what you say and they will always remember about how you make them feel. That’s everything. It has, there’s nothing that we do inside of here that you can’t get or do somewhere else.

Literally, most likely within a stone’s throw of this place. It is literally about how do you make people feel. People will come up to me and say, hey, I was in your store last week. I have one question. Did we tell you please? Did we tell you thank you? Because if we did those two things, chances are everything in between went to script.

99 percent of the time, people respond by saying, Yeah, you guys totally did that. And you did this, and you did this, and oh, I just love your staff. We’re so spoiled by those accolades that we get on a very consistent basis. But on the other side of that coin where it’s great to hear those and get the good pats on the back.

We as an organization do know that the real value comes from the places that we didn’t do that. When people say, hey, you know, actually, or we get a poor review. I love, it sounds so bad. I love getting poor reviews because I realized what that is is that’s two things. That’s one, somebody saying, I care about you guys.

Because if they didn’t care, they wouldn’t leave a review. And two, I think you guys can do better. And here’s why. Here’s the experience that I had. So when I hear those things, my ears perk up. We have a saying around, around the organization is that we fight for the inches. I like to think that we’ve got the basics down as far as customer service and customer experience goes, but we’re always looking for those little places that we can either one, elevate a place that we didn’t recognize that we needed to be able that we could elevate inside of the customer experience or two, those places that we can go, oh, hey, we’re pretty good here. Well, let’s be awesome. Let’s take it to this level. Let’s take it to the level with that when the car doors close or they head home or they’re on the flight back home and they sit and they talk about man, but you remember that bike shop we went into? Those people were so cool and they treated us like they actually cared that we were there.

Because we do. Sure, we love the pats on the back. We realize that the opportunity is literally in the places where we, where people tell us that we screw up. But ultimately, we just try to, we apologize. We recognize that we messed up. We talk about ways to resolve it. And then more importantly, we talk about how we’re going to resolve it within the organization.

And then we communicate it inside of these four walls. This happens, let’s do this this way. That’s our staff, they get it. 

Josie Van Der Velden: It’s funny, I think the, we came in a couple times this week and every time it was like so natural that I got into conversation with the staff that we, I don’t even know what we’re talking about and then they’re like so like, do you need something?

Right. Oh, right. Yes. I do need something. Yes. I forgot, but thank you for the conversation around cameras. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah. 

Josie Van Der Velden: It’s a good, yeah, it’s a good feeling. 

Dan McGarigle: You know, it is, as silly as it sounds, all we’re doing is building relationships. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Exactly. Yeah. 

Dan McGarigle: Um. 

Josie Van Der Velden: We’ve talked a lot about kind of just really cool things that you’re doing within Pine Mountain, you know gthe giving back to the community creating community fostering.

What do you want like the what do you think the world can learn from how you do things here? Or how Bend does things?

Dan McGarigle: Oh dear lord. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Um, you got the microphone. It’s like 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah. Yeah. Um, the things that just flashed through my, through my head were a couple of things that we actually talked about before. It’s almost a little bit getting into, into the hippie side of life.

Into that, hey, we can all get along and hey, we can all be respectful and kind to each other. And, and I think that’s the example that we really do present inside, inside this organization. Are we going to remember every customer’s name? No, we can’t. It’s just impossible. We can’t expect that of our staff.

But how do you make people feel? Everybody wants to be included. Everybody wants to be invited. You know, we’re not all that different, especially, you know, on a global level, we’re not all that different, you know, on a societal level, on a cultural level within our country. And then more importantly, when you walk into these doors, we’re not all that different.

Everybody just wants to be taken care of and respected, be shown kindness, some thoughtfulness. It doesn’t take a lot. We have everything that we need given to us on the planet in which we live. And we can’t seem to get out of our own way of how to make sure that everybody that lives on this planet lives well.

Maybe in some weird way, you know, the things that we do within our community and supporting non profits. Maybe the experience that we provide inside the store. Um, whatever it might be. Bob Marley said something about how, you know, he said, oh, am I a rich man? He said, yeah, but he said, what does that mean?

And the interviewer was talking about money. He said, well, money’s infinite. And if you’re counting on money to make you happy, you’ll never be happy because you can always try to get more money. But, you know, if you have joy in your life, if you can share that with people around you. And help people around you doing it. I think that’s the best life to live. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Well, you’re not just daydreaming either. I mean, you’re putting that into action and how you’re running this business and how you’re kind of like showing people who work here, like, yeah, we could start another business. We could do it, but instead we’re supporting people who need it, right?

That’s that, uh, it means something. Action is real. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah it is. 

Josie Van Der Velden: On all levels. What do you want this place to be like in 10 years? 

Dan McGarigle: I want it to be a better version of what it is today. Very simply put, I love what we do. I love how we do it. It’s really fun on a personal level, almost all the time. But ten years from now, you know, I would like for Pine to continue to do what it does.

I want it to be a better business. I want it to be a bigger resource to the community. I want it to be that conversation piece when people are downtown at dinner and they’re like, oh my gosh, we went to this bike shop today and they, they did what? Oh my gosh, that’s so cool. That’s really all I want. On a selfish note, I simply want to be content with what it is in 10 years.

Josie Van Der Velden: What about Bend? 

Dan McGarigle: Um, generally speaking, I like most of the things of the trajectory that this community and that the city is on. With Bend, what I would like to see it be is I would like to see it continue to be partially the community that it is. I would like for it to have more accessibility for people who can’t come here and afford the median household in median, median price for a home because it is simply unattainable for most, I can’t say for most, but for a lot of people moving to Bend.

Um, I would like to see it be able to address, you know, the cost of living here and how that works. But aside from that, I got high hopes for Bend, I really do. Um, the idea of finding the next mountain town. The next place. Whatever it might be. Since the advent of the internet, those little places are harder and harder to find.

You know, the the little jewels of communities that were around, they’re found. There’s more and more people out there in the world. Will there be a next Bend, Oregon in the U. S.? Probably. Where is it? I have no idea. But I think as far as, you know, coming from a town that was struggling in the 80s. Literally struggling.

I’ve had people tell me that during the 80s you couldn’t get a U-Haul out of town. Because nobody was coming. And therefore you couldn’t leave because you couldn’t get a truck to get out of town. And then I think about that transitionary period I think that we went through in the late 90s and into the 2000s.

That first big boom that we saw from ‘99 to 2006. And then the recession that we saw from 2006 to 2009. And then how Bend was able to pull itself out of that recession up until COVID. And then COVID hit and I thought I had seen growth in Bend. Wow. You know, as soon as this mass, mass exodus from urban areas became a thing, I’d seen Bend grow before it was, it was on.

And so now here we are kind of settling out of that. How much more of the workforce will be able to work remotely? How much of the current workforce that’s working remotely will get pulled back in? You know, where that whole thing’s going to go? Who knows? I would like to see Bend continue to be the community that it is.

Um, I’d still love to see those random acts of kindness that I see almost daily in this community continue. Um, but overall, I got really high hopes for this area. You know, it has a lot to offer. Is it going to get busier? Yeah. Um, would patience be really helpful from everybody? Yeah. But we can’t control how many people are moving here.

The only thing that we really have a choice of is what’s the expectations that we have of those people. And then it really just comes down to how do we carry ourselves. You know, to set those expectations, we have to lead by example, and that literally falls on every community member. This is, this is who Bend, Oregon is.

And how’d you say it? It’s okay if you come visit? 

Josie Van Der Velden: Oh, uh, don’t just come here, be here. 

Dan McGarigle: Yeah, be here. You know, like I said, once you actually engage people, they’re able to, oh right, yeah, you’re on vacation. You’re living in Bend. You chill out. It’s gonna be okay.

Josie Van Der Velden: It’s a good, it’s a good vision. It also puts, you know, I think there’s a lot of fear that comes with uncertainty.

You know, like, well, it’s growing so much and I don’t know what’s going to happen and it feels out of control. But when you say, like, if you can set the example that you want for the people who are coming here, whether as they’re tourists or as moving here, then you can take back a little bit of that control.

Dan McGarigle: Yeah. 

Josie Van Der Velden: Is there anything that we, I mean that’s all the questions we’ve got. Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you kind of wish you had had the opportunity to say or talk about?  

Dan McGarigle:  Um there is actually. Um, and it goes like this. A lot of the character and charm about this community and probably a lot of the communities that you’re doing these interviews in.

Isn’t because we have the best Lululemon store not to knock on Lulu, shouldn’t even say big names. They’re up and down I-5. They’re in every major market out there and they’re probably doing just fine. Inside Bend and really when wherever this podcast is being heard the big thing I would tell you guys support your local businesses. Behind every small business is a is a family praying that it works. Go support them. They’re the ones that make differences in your community.

They’re the ones that ultimately build the character and the charm of a community. And they’re the ones that your dollars can affect the most. So when you have those choices, go support your local businesses. I don’t care what businesses that they are, but your dollars mean more to them and they impact your community in a much more positive way than bigger businesses do.

Um, you, you might even find yourself getting a lot of pleases and thank yous while you do it. 

Josie Van Der Velden: That’s what I got. That’s perfect. Thank you so much, Dan. That was great. 

David Archer: This has been traveled beyond presented by Destination Think. And you just hear Josie Van Der Velden speaking with Dan McGarigle of Pine Mountain Sports.

For more resources and show notes, visit the blog at DestinationThink. com. This episode was produced and has theme music composed by me, David Archer. My co-host is Sarah Raymond de Booy. Lindsay Payne provided production support. If you like what you hear, please take a moment to give us a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

It helps more people find the show. We would like to thank Visit Bend for sponsoring this season of Travel Beyond. And next time, we’ll hear from a Bend tour operator about how his guided tours are helping to preserve the environment and how his business is connecting tourists with NGOs. See you then!