Hasta La Ideas

In 2002 Cam Brensinger was a RISD industrial design student on a camping trip. An experienced outdoorsman, Brensinger spent a miserable night on that particular outing to Mount Washington, due to using poorly-designed gear. He came back down the mountain with the seeds of his Masters thesis in his head.

After graduating later that year, Brensinger turned his thesis into a company: NEMO Equipment. By 2003 he had prototypes of tents featuring his brilliant AirSupported Technology, whereby aluminum tentpoles are done away with and beams filled with compressed air provide the tent’s structure.

With AirSupported beams, setup is both fast and simple. Users provide the air via an included self-powered pump that can inflate the beams in as little as five seconds. Packing is greatly simplified, not to mention made lighter and smaller, as there are no pole sections to carry. And the design of the airbeams makes them able to withstand “more than twice the downward force” of standard tent pole. Lastly, they cannot be permanently deformed; bend them out of shape, and they spring back into position when the obstacle is removed.

The company thrived, and in 2006 Brensinger received some kick-ass validation: NEMO’s lightweight, fast- and compact-packing Gogo tent drew the attention of a group of Navy SEALs, who contacted the company. A subsequent collaboration involving SEAL testing in Alaska spawned NEMO’s Special Operations Shelters subdivision of products.

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