knows the outdoor industry better than almost anyone. He’s held leadership positions with Vail Resorts, Outward Bound, and VF Corporation, taught outdoor recreation economy at the University of Colorado’s business school, and even guided clients to the summit of Mount Everest and other 8,000-meter peaks. But Benitez, who is currently the Vice President of Government Affairs for Lululemon, is best known as the, a position he took on in 2015.听

In 2024 Benitez co-authored a book alongside听国产吃瓜黑料 contributor Frederick Reimers about his experiences in outdoor recreation titled .听In this excerpt, Benitez discusses his time in Colorado state government.听

My gratitude for all that outdoor recreation has given me was behind the most unexpected turn of my life鈥攇overnment service. As the son of an immigrant and an indifferent student in my youth, I was shocked to find myself working directly with the governor of Colorado.

In 2015, then-governor (now senator) John Hickenlooper asked me to lead the state鈥檚 first Office of the Outdoor Recreation Industry. The idea was to be a government liaison and advocate for Colorado鈥檚 outdoor-recreation businesses. I鈥檇 be working on behalf of Summit County鈥檚 ski resorts and for hunting guides in the town of Rangely, as well as with growing gear manufacturers like Big Agnes and established retail giants like REI, who has a flagship store in Denver.

Helping those businesses thrive meant improving access to outdoor recreation across the state by working with state parks and the national forests to build more trails, more bike paths, and even more whitewater rapids. In the same way the airline industry relies on the FAA and air-traffic controllers, and the transportation industry on highway departments, the outdoor industry needs government oversight of the places where we play.

Yet as honored as I was to be asked, the opportunity required sacrifice, a step back in pay, and a move from the mountain community of Eagle, where my wife and I had, beginning in 2014, made a home while we were still dating. We wrestled with the decision, but the chance to be of service to the industry and community won the day. I got to work.

Growing a Vital Part of the Colorado Economy

In my four years鈥攆rom 2015 to 2019鈥攁s the director of Colorado鈥檚 Office of the Outdoor Recreation Industry, we grew that sector of the economy from $23 billion to $63 billion, recruiting businesses and individuals who saw the state as a great place to work, and more importantly, live. Promoting Colorado鈥檚 recreational amenities to visitors and prospective businesses wasn鈥檛 enough, though. I realized that ours was an industry that needed more support from academia, in the same way that the medical profession, the engineering professions and tech rely on universities to train and cultivate new talent.

We needed to educate workers who could make the outdoor-recreation economy more resilient, and more importantly, sustainable. I urged Western Colorado University, in Gunnison, to create the nation鈥檚 first MBA focused on outdoor rec in 2018, and had a hand in the creation of the University of Colorado Boulder鈥檚 Masters in Economics of the Outdoor Recreation Economy, and Denver University鈥檚 Leadership in Outdoor Recreation Industry program. My industry was growing up.

I wasn鈥檛 the only one realizing it. There was a national movement for the outdoor industry to be more involved in protecting our playgrounds and nurturing the essential conditions for our businesses. One tool was to establish the importance of our industry to the national economy. The numbers are huge.

In 2021 visits to national parks alone generate $20.5 billion in direct spending at hotels, restaurants, outfitters, and other amenities in nearby gateway communities, supporting over 322,600 jobs and generating over $42.5 billion in total economic output. The outdoor-recreation economy generates an $862 billion impact every year.

Between the likes of gear manufacturers such as Columbia, whitewater-rafting outfitters in West Virginia, and bike shops in Moab, Utah, we account for 4.5 million jobs, the majority of them in small businesses. We represent 1.9 percent of the GDP, which is bigger than the automotive and the pharmaceutical industries combined.

In fact, the outdoor industry is larger than the mineral-extraction industry, which illustrates the stakes perfectly: Isn鈥檛 a hiking trail just as important to our economy as an oil well? Why should our industry have to rely on a constellation of nonprofits like the Access Fund and the Sierra Club and the Appalachian Mountain Club to ensure that our businesses can continue to thrive by building and maintaining our recreation sites and our trails? We need to treat recreational infrastructure the same way we treat transportation infrastructure.

This type of investment works. According to the State of Virginia, in 2019, for every $1 of general tax revenue provided to state parks in Virginia, the parks brought in $17.68. That same year, the National Park System generated more than 30 times as much as the federal government invested. Look at Columbus, Ohio, which in 2023 converted an abandoned limestone quarry into a 180-acre park featuring mountain-bike trails, lakes for paddling, and a via ferrata rock-climbing course along the quarry鈥檚 150-foot-tall cliff face. That new park follows the city鈥檚 2009 investment in a climbing wall open to the public that is amongst the nation鈥檚 largest. 鈥淥ur goal with that park was to keep urban young professionals in Columbus,鈥� the city鈥檚 park operations manager told 国产吃瓜黑料 magazine.

Columbus is putting into play a trend that Salt Lake City has been benefiting from for years. In 2021, a University of Utah study looked at Utah鈥檚 booming tech sector. The study found that 85 percent of tech workers working in the state chose to stay despite being offered a higher salary elsewhere, citing the outdoor-recreation opportunities as their motivation. For those workers who left and then returned, 62 percent said outdoor recreation was their primary reason, compared to 49 percent who said that family was the most important factor.

We aren鈥檛 just talking about rock climbers and bird watchers. The outdoor-recreation economy encompasses motorsports fans too, featuring big-ticket items like Jet Skis, powerboats, and quadrunners. Dirt bikers like me value long, challenging trails, where we can get away from suburbia and leave our problems behind, taking a mental-health break.

We are realizing that outdoor recreation has benefits beyond just fun. Studies are increasingly showing that time outside is a critical component of physical and mental health. Even just living near green space can provide a stunning array of advantages. In one Danish study, researchers used satellite data to assess children鈥檚 exposure to green space, correlating each child鈥檚 place of residence with nearby parks. Children who lived in neighborhoods with more green space had a reduced risk of depression, mood disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders, and substance abuse later in life.

Those with the lowest levels of green-space exposure during childhood had a 55 percent higher risk of developing mental illnesses than those who鈥檇 grown up with abundant green space. (Now imagine those same, city-bound kids with access to safe, green-lined pathways and a bicycle.) That was just one of the studies referenced in the Colorado Outdoor Rx Report my office produced illustrate to government departments the importance of allocating resources for better access for outdoor recreation, whether in the wild or in urban planning.

To get the word out about outdoor recreation鈥檚 value for our health and our economy, I knew there needed to be more people like me working in state governments. With the governor鈥檚 blessing, I personally met with delegations from a half dozen states including Montana and Michigan, urging them to create their own positions. The number of offices rose from two to eight in just three years and included states from both sides of the political spectrum, from Wyoming to Vermont. That felt significant in such a partisan political climate.

A Plan to Create More State Outdoor Recreation Offices

Realizing we鈥檇 be more effective all pulling in the same direction, we drafted the Confluence Accords. The document is an operational charter for state outdoor-recreation (Orec) offices and stands on four distinct pillars: economic development (keep this economy strong); conservation and stewardship (without the wild places, there would be no reason to buy that new fleece jacket); education and workforce development (where will the next generation of leadership for this industry come from and what will their education look like?); and, above all, public health (this was validated, for instance, by the returning-veteran community, which showed a significant decrease in traumatic brain injury [TBI] and post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD] impacts by spending time outside, and has been codified by the handful of nations like Japan that can now formally鈥攂y a doctor鈥攑rescribe time outside instead of medication). The Accords are an agreement that each state agency signing on will work on behalf of each of those pillars.

Eleven states have signed the Confluence Accords, with more on the way. How many other industries have made a formal agreement to work for the greater good of society? None that I can think of.

That alignment across the industry and the states has led to some remarkable bipartisan political wins in recent years, at a time when such wins are nearly extinct. Armed with the GDP numbers and scientific studies, outdoor-recreation-industry leaders were major players in advocating for the John D. Dingell Jr. Conservation, Management, and Recreation Act in 2019, which created 1.3 million acres of Wilderness and 10 new Wild and Scenic River segments, and increased the size of three national parks, amongst dozens of other conservation acts in dozens of states. The Senate passed it by a 92-8 vote, and it was signed into law by President Trump.

The following year saw similar bipartisan support for the Great American Outdoors Act, which permanently allocated $900 million annually to the Land and Water Conservation Fund, a source for recreational infrastructure created in 1965. The fund helped create some $18 billion in boat ramps, bike paths, and state parks over the years, but was allowed to lapse in 2018 amidst partisan bickering. The Great American Outdoors Act also allocated $9.5 billion to reduce the infamous National Park Service maintenance backlog. Some called it the most significant conservation legislation in a half century. The only thing both sides of the political aisle can agree on, seemingly, is funding and conservation for outdoor recreation.

The Need for a National Outdoor Recreation Office

Those successes have led us to start asking whether it is time to push Washington, D.C., to create a federal outdoor-recreation-industry office to continue the promotion and preservation of this unique and special economy. As we saw earlier, outdoor recreation comprises nearly 2 percent of our nation鈥檚 economy and provides priceless quality-of-life and health benefits to our people, but there鈥檚 no specific entity shepherding it in the federal government. Imagine how much more effective we could be with dedicated leadership?

What would such an agency do? Firstly, it would convene the state offices, which will hopefully eventually number 50, and help channel money their way. The Great American Outdoors Act shows there鈥檚 an appetite for such spending across the political spectrum. We鈥檝e also been able to educate D.C. about the value of such investments. The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, for example, earmarks $750 million for investments in outdoor-recreation travel and tourism. The problem is, many local governments don鈥檛 know how to access those funds. Furthermore, I believe the time has come for recreationists to ante up and pay into the system. Hunters and fishermen have, through special taxes on guns, ammunition, and fishing tackle approved decades ago, been helping pay for conservation and scientific management of wildlife habitat to the tune of $23 billion over the lifetime of the legislation that created the funding. Likewise, I think those of us using trails and boat ramps should help invest in their preservation. Similar taxes have been wildly successful in Minnesota, Missouri, and Georgia. It’s time for us, too, to pay to play.

A national director of outdoor recreation would also help coordinate federal agencies like the United States Forest Service (USFS), National Park Service (NPS), Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and any other agency that managed land or resources of benefit to outdoor recreation. Right now, that鈥檚 the job of the Federal Interagency Council on Outdoor Recreation (FICOR). It was created in 2011, and before it was dissolved by the Trump Administration, FICOR made significant strides on behalf of outdoor recreation, including combining most federal permits and reservations into the Recreation.gov website and helping the Bureau of Economic Analysis measure the economic impact of the Orec industry. Under the Biden Administration, FICOR is back, but the problem is that its leadership rotates annually between the agencies, and so FICOR doesn鈥檛 have the full attention of any of them.

It鈥檚 an idea that already has a precedent. From 1962 until the late 1970s, there actually existed a federal Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, which worked on both the national and local levels to promote outdoor recreation. In addition to creating some of the foundational research on the health benefits of outdoor recreation, and on the importance of equity in getting Americans outside, the bureau was a prime driver behind some of the nation鈥檚 seminal recreation and conservation legislation, including the Wilderness Act in 1964 and the creation of the Land and Water Conservation Fund that same year. The bureau was also the originator of the idea of rails to trails, converting abandoned railway lines into recreational pathways, and helped fund some of the earliest rail-to-trail projects in nine states including California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.

The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation also set the precedent of cooperation between federal agencies to foster recreation. Even more prescient was its approach of establishing cooperation between such federal agencies and the states to create parks and trail systems. Ultimately, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation was subsumed into the National Park Service in 1981. Because it had no real funding of its own, and couldn鈥檛 make its own policy, it was easy prey for the anti-conservationists of the Reagan Administration.

Before you start thinking 鈥淯h oh, this smells like Big Government,鈥� I鈥檇 assure you that it doesn鈥檛 need to be. I did my job with the State of Colorado with just my salary, a gas card, and a laptop. The outdoor industry is great at getting by with minimal resources鈥攇ive us a roll of duct tape and some bailing wire, and we鈥檒l cobble something together. Furthermore, I would challenge you to ask yourself if you are comfortable with nonprofits and trade associations alone protecting and promoting our birthright, the public lands that Teddy Roosevelt called 鈥淎merica鈥檚 best idea鈥�?

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May 25, 2003鈥擪arma Sherpa, who for three days had been serving clients at Everest Camp IV, at 26,000 feet, staggered into Camp II suffering from a severe internal organ failure, in dire need of medical assistance. Those who were able to help him did, but radio听pleas to Base Camp for others to come up and assist went unanswered, presumably because most teams were conserving their strength and resources for their upcoming summit attempts. In the constant battle on Everest between personal goals and the direction of your moral compass, all the teams that were contacted elected to stay put.听

Luis Benitez

Everest summits: 6

Photo: Claudia Lopez

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So, during a brutal 11-hour rescue attempt that saw one American, two Argentineans, two Italians, and four Sherpas drag the gravely ill man down from Camp II, Karma Sherpa鈥檚 heart stopped beating in the middle of the Khumbu Icefall. Another frantic call to base camp went unanswered, and an American, an Argentinean, and a Sherpa knelt side by side and administered CPR, hoping to restart Karma鈥檚 heart. He died as the icy walls creaked and groaned around us. When we arrived in base camp later that night, amid the chatter and laughter coming from brightly lit tents, it struck me then, as it does now, what Karma鈥檚 death represented: the departure of morality from Everest.

In the beginning of Everest climbing, perhaps all the way back to the 1920鈥檚, Westerners and Europeans were seen as the 鈥淏ara Sahibs,鈥� bringing high-paying work to a people who, at the time, were mostly subsistence farmers. The work allowed a very isolated tribe in the Himalayas access to a potentially brighter future. Climbers who felt a special connection to the people and the mountains sought out ways to return and help grow the culture. They brought medicine, education, and higher-order knowledge about how international business was conducted. This was always done with the deepest level of respect and admiration for the community that Western climbers traveled through and worked with. The glory that came from those expeditions was one of shared effort.

If we learn from this crisis, it should no longer be about the bottom line. Morality is a powerful tool when used correctly.

In the commercial era, which began in earnest during the early 90s, expeditions and the climbing culture got more complicated. The Nepali government realized what a cash cow it had with Everest and surrounding peaks, and the older Sherpas were able not only to secure work for family and friends, but, as pay increased, to start sending their children to school both in Kathmandu and abroad. As this generation returned to work on the mountain, we in the guiding community were in a unique position to help advance the culture even more by imparting positive lessons about how we do business during a new, emerging age of wealthy climbing clientele.

Instead, what was the business lesson we consciously or unconsciously chose to impart?

The bottom line, above all else. Maximize profit. Minimize overhead.

Want to advance? Be the strongest. Do double carries to higher camps and get back in time to serve lunch to the Sahibs. If one of you dies? While that is sad, life and our expedition will go on. Bit by bit, this ethos chipped away at a Buddhist culture that is largely based on principles of service and sacrifice.

Now a new generation of Sherpa has the benefit of deeper self-awareness and education. They can speak multiple languages, often have lived abroad, and understand much about how the Western world works. These Sherpas began to ask questions, of themselves and the guiding community.

For the most part, this generation is not willing to remain beholden to Western and European companies for work. They realize that millions have been made by the owners of some foreign guiding companies. They see their resource (Everest) being used for gain, and they have begun to take a stand. Search social media sites, and you will already see Sherpas soliciting clients for future expeditions that will be led and supported by Sherpas. Some companies call these breakaway organizations irresponsible, saying they don鈥檛 have enough training to guide Everest trips. Why is that? What have we taught them about business? The bottom line above all else鈥�and they have learned well.

We are at a critical moment in the midst of this crisis. Written in Chinese, the word 鈥渃risis鈥� is composed of two characters. One represents danger, the other opportunity. The danger from this event is that, next year, everything will go back to business as usual. This, in my estimation, would signify that those who perished have died in vain, and would be a further scar on the guiding community and an insult to the Sherpa culture.

But this crisis is also an opportunity. I have many friends who are losing a dream this week, because the Everest climbing season may be shut down. These are people who have worked hard, saved money, and will get only one shot at climbing the mountain, given all that was put on hold in their daily lives. Yet their response to this potential loss? Most of them recognize that climbers are guests of the Sherpas, and would support their decision to stop climbing. Two companies I personally worked with for years鈥擜lpine Ascents International and 国产吃瓜黑料 Consultants鈥攈ave chosen to cancel their trips at great cost to clients and company. Their message? 鈥淲e stand with the Sherpas in this time of grieving.鈥� Russel Brice canceled his whole expedition at the very threat of danger in the same place on the mountain in 2012. Bravo.

Now is the time and the opportunity to capture this message and carry it forward. If we learn from this crisis, it should no longer be about the bottom line, or a few companies struggling to change the entire culture, but more about simply doing the right thing. Morality is a powerful tool when used correctly. To truly lead and show the Sherpas that they are not a disposable resource, travel to the Ministry in Kathmandu and lobby beside them for the changes that they seek. Train them how to be better climbers and how to be better at business. Show them that their brothers, fathers, and sons did not die in vain. Will it affect our bottom line? Probably. Will we have more companies to compete with? Absolutely.

Yet here is the ultimate lesson for all of us: It鈥檚 the right thing to do.

Luis Benitez (@), a mountain guide who has summited Everest six times, owns Endeavor Consulting, a developmental group that is working with the Everest Alliance in the aftermath of the 2014 avalanche.

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