Closer Than You Think
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An Interview with Nocs founder, Chris McKleroy
CONTACT
info@HenceSupply.co
Park City, Utah 84098
When Thoreau first experienced the wild, unencumbered mountainside at Khatadin— resplendent with moose trail, harrowing scrambles, and crevice-tucked sleeping bears—he freaked out.
“This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night”, he proclaimed with biblical utterance. “Rocks , trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact!”, he screamed into the eternal bliss state, the flow, the opening of self to everything and nothing at once. It was a moment of existential clarity. And it’s one that, if you’ve spent much time outdoors, you’ve likely experienced as well.
As epic as our storied adventures are, it’s the simple, focused effort toward connection that drives us—whether that’s connection with self, with each other, or with nature. And as Chris McKleroy (founder, Nocs Provisions) says, “It’s closer than you think.”
As epic as our storied adventures are, it’s the simple, focused effort toward connection that drives us—whether that’s connection with self, with each other, or with nature. And as Chris McKleroy (founder, Nocs Provisions) says, “It’s closer than you think.”
For Chris and the products of his own design, it’s all about taking the pretense out of the excursion. With myriad experiences to be had outside, Chris, and by extension, Nocs, encourages us to use optics as an avenue to simpler, more easily accessible adventures.
“What Nocs encapsulates is not that top-of-the-mountain, climb the “50 fucking hardest climbs in North America” mentality. I realized that even just personally, being an experienced outdoor person, that you achieve so much by just stepping into the woods. Who cares if you don’t climb to the top of the mountain? Who cares if you just take a hike to nowhere? Just do it! Get out of the house, break through the boundary of your home.”
This mentality has been at the forefront of Chris’ life since he was a kid, trying to be like his Dad as he sought his own sort of ‘contact’ on single track and slope. “I realize my Dad had such a big influence on my biking and skiing, that was what he was into, and I wanted to be like him. When I was young, he got me a mountain bike, and I would follow him around and try to keep up.”
Chris grew up in the Bay Area, but his Grandfather was a founding member of the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort in Tahoe. As he relates, “[My Grandfather] grew up skiing here, then my Dad grew up skiing here, then I grew up skiing here…and then working in a bike shop (and ski racing)—spending all the time I could in the mountains. That was it for me—hooked.”
From his childhood in the mountains and a deep-rooted passion for creative work came a dedication to building products. Specifically, building quality products with high value. “It’s the backbone of the business. The brand gets to stand on top of the product, to have a lot of fun, because the product is ultimately the deciding factor”, he says.
Chris started tinkering with an idea for a fresh take on binoculars in 2017 while living in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset neighborhood and constantly monitoring the local swell. Chris’ curiosity was further piqued by the prospects of creating a new tool for his backcountry skiing outings. “I’m a 3D print nerd, so I started printing all of these cool designs.” While printing and refining his design, he resisted the urge to go all in immediately. “I didn’t just up and quit my job. We had momentum going into 2019, but I didn’t quit my day job until 2020.”
For all his patience and perseverance, Chris ended up with an eye-catching, tactile, timelessly rugged design. Contemporary but somehow a little retro—inspired by “the seemingly symmetric yet completely unique lines of the sea and the coastal dunes where they meet”. Unlike the standard-issue black binoculars of Boy Scout troop lore, the optics come ensconced in bright colors to fit the user’s mood, location, or activity. The woven tapestry straps provide added personality. Add to the beach-inspired look and feel the fact that each pair boasts best-in-class optics, and you have a high-end product that came to the party ready to dance.
Nocs isn’t only breaking the mold in terms of design, it’s changing the conversation about how, when, where, and even why to use optics. The binocular landscape has traditionally been heavily influenced by their use for hunting and military applications. From the get-go, Chris’ vision for Nocs was to break trail and make optics “approachable, accessible, and affordable“. Says Chris, “From a product standpoint, the opportunity is to branch out beyond the existing places where binoculars are used and sold. How do we build accessibility and inclusivity in a wide breadth of activities where, heck, binoculars will make you have a better time? Throw a binocular in your backpack, head out into either the countryside or city, and connect in a new way to that environment.”
As Nocs customers engaged with the product, Chris applied their feedback. “It’s really impacted my view of the brand as a steward to our customers’ needs. Any brand that thinks they are in control is wrong, it’s the customers that are in control, and it’s up to us to keep up.” In this spirit, new opportunities to connect with like-minded people have emerged. From birding to whale watching and overlanding, people are getting outside in new and interesting ways. “We couldn’t have predicted that and didn’t plan for it, but now that we are here, we’re finding ways to support these verticals”, Chris says.
Within this wide range of activities, Chris seeks to simply get people up, out of the house, and moving—whether solo or with co-conspirators. For Chris, this means riding a bicycle at any and every opportunity. “Riding a bicycle remedies everything—exploring, commuting, whatever—a bike makes it easy and fun to get out.”
Chris also wants to push to get kids, specifically, off their screens and onto bikes. Since its launch, Nocs has supported Trips for Kids Marin. They provide after-school access to mountain bikes, and the kids who are really involved get a chance to learn to build their own bike by volunteering their time. It’s a great program, and there should be 10x more chapters in the country”, Chris says.
On his daily sojourns outside, Chris also has developed a passion for observing wildlife and connecting to small outdoors-focused organizations around the country. “I’m interested in grassroots birding organizations, for example, like the Feminist Bird Club, Bipoc Birders of Wisconsin, and In Color Birding Club in Philadelphia—there’re a lot of grassroots organizations advocating for inclusivity within the subculture of birding. I think they’re really interested in growing that community around mental health by pushing their members to step outside.”
“Life is about presence in the moment. And Nocs offers an opportunity to slow down— visual meditation, with all of the focus on the subject. It’s really about being in the moment. Put down your phone, step out of your house, and go outside to discover the cool stuff around you—because it’s everywhere.”
As Chris looks toward the future of Nocs, he’s reminded of how he got here. The Company has taken risks—starting with challenging the market’s large incumbent players, who are backed by the NRA, to placing ever larger orders with their manufacturing partners to keep up with growth (despite the pandemic), and culminating with building a pro issue binocular at a relatively lofty $300 price point. Incrementally, milestones were marked, learnings applied, and risk slowly mitigated, but it’s always been about something more.
Regardless of where the brand started or how it’s grown, Nocs continues its path forward with intent. “Life is about presence in the moment. And Nocs offers an opportunity to slow down— visual meditation, with all of the focus on the subject. It’s really about being in the moment. Put down your phone, step out of your house, and go outside to discover the cool stuff around you—because it’s everywhere”, says Chris. “Being near Golden Gate Park, you could be in your little apartment and then pop into the woods on a mountain bike, and within 5 minutes you’re in your nature brain.”
For Chris, it’s not just about planning the next epic trip to Patagonia, working yourself to exhaustion in the city, or grinding for months in order to take that one deep dive into the natural world. “It’s that trip to that little park in your neighborhood and then going to the creek and getting your feet wet, y’know? It’s going off the beaten path and really being raw.”
Letting go of daily distractions, putting down screens, going outside to meet the world where it’s at. For Chris McKleroy contact is closer than you think.
When Thoreau first experienced the wild, unencumbered mountainside at Khatadin— resplendent with moose trail, harrowing scrambles, and crevice-tucked sleeping bears—he freaked out.
“This was that Earth of which we have heard, made out of Chaos and Old Night”, he proclaimed with biblical utterance. “Rocks , trees, wind on our cheeks! The solid earth! The actual world! The common sense! Contact! Contact!”, he screamed into the eternal bliss state, the flow, the opening of self to everything and nothing at once. It was a moment of existential clarity. And it’s one that, if you’ve spent much time outdoors, you’ve likely experienced as well.
As epic as our storied adventures are, it’s the simple, focused effort toward connection that drives us—whether that’s connection with self, with each other, or with nature. And as Chris McKleroy (founder, Nocs Provisions) says, “It’s closer than you think.”
As epic as our storied adventures are, it’s the simple, focused effort toward connection that drives us—whether that’s connection with self, with each other, or with nature. And as Chris McKleroy (founder, Nocs Provisions) says, “It’s closer than you think.”
For Chris and the products of his own design, it’s all about taking the pretense out of the excursion. With myriad experiences to be had outside, Chris, and by extension, Nocs, encourages us to use optics as an avenue to simpler, more easily accessible adventures.
“What Nocs encapsulates is not that top-of-the-mountain, climb the “50 fucking hardest climbs in North America” mentality. I realized that even just personally, being an experienced outdoor person, that you achieve so much by just stepping into the woods. Who cares if you don’t climb to the top of the mountain? Who cares if you just take a hike to nowhere? Just do it! Get out of the house, break through the boundary of your home.”
This mentality has been at the forefront of Chris’ life since he was a kid, trying to be like his Dad as he sought his own sort of ‘contact’ on single track and slope. “I realize my Dad had such a big influence on my biking and skiing, that was what he was into, and I wanted to be like him. When I was young, he got me a mountain bike, and I would follow him around and try to keep up.”
Chris grew up in the Bay Area, but his Grandfather was a founding member of the Alpine Meadows Ski Resort in Tahoe. As he relates, “[My Grandfather] grew up skiing here, then my Dad grew up skiing here, then I grew up skiing here…and then working in a bike shop (and ski racing)—spending all the time I could in the mountains. That was it for me—hooked.”
From his childhood in the mountains and a deep-rooted passion for creative work came a dedication to building products. Specifically, building quality products with high value. “It’s the backbone of the business. The brand gets to stand on top of the product, to have a lot of fun, because the product is ultimately the deciding factor”, he says.
Chris started tinkering with an idea for a fresh take on binoculars in 2017 while living in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset neighborhood and constantly monitoring the local swell. Chris’ curiosity was further piqued by the prospects of creating a new tool for his backcountry skiing outings. “I’m a 3D print nerd, so I started printing all of these cool designs.” While printing and refining his design, he resisted the urge to go all in immediately. “I didn’t just up and quit my job. We had momentum going into 2019, but I didn’t quit my day job until 2020.”
For all his patience and perseverance, Chris ended up with an eye-catching, tactile, timelessly rugged design. Contemporary but somehow a little retro—inspired by “the seemingly symmetric yet completely unique lines of the sea and the coastal dunes where they meet”. Unlike the standard-issue black binoculars of Boy Scout troop lore, the optics come ensconced in bright colors to fit the user’s mood, location, or activity. The woven tapestry straps provide added personality. Add to the beach-inspired look and feel the fact that each pair boasts best-in-class optics, and you have a high-end product that came to the party ready to dance.
Nocs isn’t only breaking the mold in terms of design, it’s changing the conversation about how, when, where, and even why to use optics. The binocular landscape has traditionally been heavily influenced by their use for hunting and military applications. From the get-go, Chris’ vision for Nocs was to break trail and make optics “approachable, accessible, and affordable“. Says Chris, “From a product standpoint, the opportunity is to branch out beyond the existing places where binoculars are used and sold. How do we build accessibility and inclusivity in a wide breadth of activities where, heck, binoculars will make you have a better time? Throw a binocular in your backpack, head out into either the countryside or city, and connect in a new way to that environment.”
As Nocs customers engaged with the product, Chris applied their feedback. “It’s really impacted my view of the brand as a steward to our customers’ needs. Any brand that thinks they are in control is wrong, it’s the customers that are in control, and it’s up to us to keep up.” In this spirit, new opportunities to connect with like-minded people have emerged. From birding to whale watching and overlanding, people are getting outside in new and interesting ways. “We couldn’t have predicted that and didn’t plan for it, but now that we are here, we’re finding ways to support these verticals”, Chris says.
Within this wide range of activities, Chris seeks to simply get people up, out of the house, and moving—whether solo or with co-conspirators. For Chris, this means riding a bicycle at any and every opportunity. “Riding a bicycle remedies everything—exploring, commuting, whatever—a bike makes it easy and fun to get out.”
Chris also wants to push to get kids, specifically, off their screens and onto bikes. Since its launch, Nocs has supported Trips for Kids Marin. They provide after-school access to mountain bikes, and the kids who are really involved get a chance to learn to build their own bike by volunteering their time. It’s a great program, and there should be 10x more chapters in the country”, Chris says.
On his daily sojourns outside, Chris also has developed a passion for observing wildlife and connecting to small outdoors-focused organizations around the country. “I’m interested in grassroots birding organizations, for example, like the Feminist Bird Club, Bipoc Birders of Wisconsin, and In Color Birding Club in Philadelphia—there’re a lot of grassroots organizations advocating for inclusivity within the subculture of birding. I think they’re really interested in growing that community around mental health by pushing their members to step outside.”
“Life is about presence in the moment. And Nocs offers an opportunity to slow down— visual meditation, with all of the focus on the subject. It’s really about being in the moment. Put down your phone, step out of your house, and go outside to discover the cool stuff around you—because it’s everywhere.”
As Chris looks toward the future of Nocs, he’s reminded of how he got here. The Company has taken risks—starting with challenging the market’s large incumbent players, who are backed by the NRA, to placing ever larger orders with their manufacturing partners to keep up with growth (despite the pandemic), and culminating with building a pro issue binocular at a relatively lofty $300 price point. Incrementally, milestones were marked, learnings applied, and risk slowly mitigated, but it’s always been about something more.
Regardless of where the brand started or how it’s grown, Nocs continues its path forward with intent. “Life is about presence in the moment. And Nocs offers an opportunity to slow down— visual meditation, with all of the focus on the subject. It’s really about being in the moment. Put down your phone, step out of your house, and go outside to discover the cool stuff around you—because it’s everywhere”, says Chris. “Being near Golden Gate Park, you could be in your little apartment and then pop into the woods on a mountain bike, and within 5 minutes you’re in your nature brain.”
For Chris, it’s not just about planning the next epic trip to Patagonia, working yourself to exhaustion in the city, or grinding for months in order to take that one deep dive into the natural world. “It’s that trip to that little park in your neighborhood and then going to the creek and getting your feet wet, y’know? It’s going off the beaten path and really being raw.”
Letting go of daily distractions, putting down screens, going outside to meet the world where it’s at. For Chris McKleroy contact is closer than you think.