StoryBooth Podcast: A Conversation with Founders Van Schoessler & Gary Bracelin

Ever wonder how the Oregon Outdoor Alliance was founded? Gary Bracelin and Van Schoessler recently sat down to tell our origin story with the StoryBooth team.

Learn how a few picnic-table meetups and a shop-floor gathering at Pine Mountain turned into a statewide network that connects founders, talent, and support organizations across Oregon.

The team digs into why early efforts to poach headquarters from other states fell flat and how flipping the strategy—serve the locals first—created real momentum. From the first 75-person meetup to chapters in Portland, Hood River, Southern Oregon, and the Willamette Valley, OOA became the connective tissue for an eight-billion-dollar outdoor sector.