# 25 Years of Packrafting with Thor Tingey of Alpacka Raft: From Innovation to Industry Leadership Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812/25-years-of-packrafting-with-thor-tingey-of-alpacka-raft-from-innovation-to-industry-leadership Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812/25-years-of-packrafting-with-thor-tingey-of-alpacka-raft-from-innovation-to-industry-leadership.md Podcast: [KORE Outdoors Podcast](https://stenobird.com/podcast/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812) Published: 2025-12-17T12:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://koreoutdoors.org/podcast/ Audio file: https://media.transistor.fm/585ee466/5046ec04.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812/episodes/25-years-of-packrafting-with-thor-tingey-of-alpacka-raft-from-innovation-to-industry-leadership Duration seconds: 4431 ## Resource Thor Tingey, CEO of Alpacka Raft, discusses what it takes to establish a new category in the outdoor industry and to build an independent, family-owned company. Twenty-five years after pioneering modern packrafting, Thor shares hard-won wisdom about balancing innovation with customer feedback, navigating explosive COVID-era growth, and why maintaining in-house production is critical to his long-term strategy. Thor explains how thoughtful, sustained growth and deep customer relationships define market leadership in the outdoor industry. Episode Highlights Domestic manufacturing philosophy : Why in-house USA production preserves critical manufacturing knowledge that offshore production erodes. Establishing a new sport : The unique challenges and responsibilities of pioneering packrafting as a recreational activity and building a market category from scratch over 25 years. Customer-driven success metrics : Defining business achievement through authentic superfan stories rather than revenue numbers—when customers evangelize your brand unprompted, you've won Innovation vs. feedback balance : Weighing when to push design boundaries versus listening to what experienced customers actually need in the field Market leadership responsibility : Grappling with the ethical dimensions of being the category creator—from social media restraint to thoughtful product positioning Links: KORE Outdoors Alpacka Rafts Sheri - a documentary about Thor's mom who was Alpacka's original founder & CEO Abundance - book Thor mentions For more about the KORE Outdoors Podcast, visit https://koreoutdoors.org/podcast/ The KORE Outdoors Podcast is supported by the Province of British Columbia. ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812/episodes/25-years-of-packrafting-with-thor-tingey-of-alpacka-raft-from-innovation-to-industry-leadership/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/kore-outdoors-podcast-6858812/25-years-of-packrafting-with-thor-tingey-of-alpacka-raft-from-innovation-to-industry-leadership.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.