Brothers Fight for Control of Wilderness Experience

The corporate jungle of Chatsworth has overtaken Wilderness Experience.

The money-losing maker of outdoor gear is in the midst of a proxy fight that has pitted brother against brother, as the saying goes, in a battle for control.

Jim Thomsen, who was president of Wilderness Experience for eight years until the end of 1982, is a member of the self-styled Committee to Save Wilderness Experience, which is attempting to wrest control of the company from his brother, Greg, the chairman and president.

Both Jim, 36, and Greg, 33, are avid outdoorsmen who grew up in Van Nuys. But one thing they don’t see eye-to-eye about is the future of Wilderness Experience, which has not had an easy time of it lately.

For the quarter ended April 30, Wilderness lost $255,000 on sales of $1.7 million. It earned just $3,000 on sales of $6.2 million for the year ended Oct. 31 and lost money in the two previous years.

Greg Thomsen, who holds a 32% stake in the company, says Wilderness ought to diversify into sportswear and make more of its goods overseas. Accordingly, the company is now making a line of sportswear and swimwear in the Far East.

Jim Thomsen, who has a 14% stake, says Wilderness Experience should stick to its niche as a maker of high-end camping and outdoor gear and stay away from sportswear. He also says it should not try to manufacture too much of its product line overseas, arguing that far-off manufacturing makes the company less responsive to a changing domestic market.

But it is the losses that have prompted the proxy fight, according to Jim Thomsen. And, like a one-man tent, the company isn’t big enough for both of them anymore.

“I think that this group would be the worst thing that could happen to the company,” Greg Thomsen said of his brother’s committee. He vowed to fight to retain control.

“Our plan is to elect a majority of the board and replace Greg as president,” said Jim Thomsen.

Including his own shares, Jim Thomsen’s 11-member committee has an 18% stake, with its members including a pair of former Wilderness salesmen, he said. The committee hopes to make one of them, William Kaplan, the company’s president, according to its proxy.

Wilderness Experience has agreed to hold a special meeting Sept. 10 to vote on the removal of the incumbent board.

Although he left Wilderness nearly three years ago, Jim Thomsen has remained in the outdoor-gear business. He has a store in Northridge called the Mountain Shop that sells Wilderness Experience products. And he is a partner in a Canoga Park business that does contract sewing for Wilderness Experience.

The brothers acknowledge that the proxy fight has been a bit of a strain.

“We talk,” Greg insisted. “I don’t think it’s anything personal,” said Jim, adding, however, that “we’re not real friendly.”

Greg Thomsen also accuses his brother of improperly soliciting votes for the past three or four months--long before the committee’s materials were filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Jim Thomsen denies that. “We’re positive we’ve done everything right,” he said.

Wilderness Experience started as an excursion company run by Laurie Thomsen, Jim Thomsen’s first wife. Greg had been a guide on some Wilderness Experience trips and, with his brother, ran a retail business as well.

In 1970, Laurie Thomsen, then 21, was killed in a mountain-climbing accident, and the two brothers took over the business.

They gradually turned Wilderness Experience into a manufacturing operation, making it a partnership 12 years ago and a corporation in 1976.

The company now has 120 employees, almost all in Chatsworth, and makes sleeping bags, backpacks, tents and clothing, all aimed at the high end of the mountaineering and outdoor market.

“If somebody’s going to climb Everest, we’re one of two companies that could supply them,” Greg Thomsen said.