Copyright startribune
“We were a big group and we’d fill up the room we met in,” Hargesheimer said. “He would then stand up in the aisle, with a loaded backpack, and say ‘I’ve got brand new climbing gear,’ and he’d sell it right there to people.” After college, Johnson decided to open up a physical location. He called the store “The Johnson Company” because his father had a business of the same name and he could use the same stationery for free, Hargesheimer said. Eventually Johnson landed on the name “Midwest Mountaineering.” Employees frequently questioned Johnson’s marketing ideas, like offering coupons that could be exchanged at the store for $1 without a purchase, Hargesheimer said. That was wildly successful, attracting at one point 400 people in one day. Other ideas like the Outdoor Adventure Expo and Thrifty Outfitters, which sold sample gear at a discount above Midwest Mountaineering, became mainstays. But other ventures, like a storefront in downtown St. Paul that sold “upscale fashionable outdoor clothing,” didn’t work out so well, and the store eventually closed, Hargesheimer said. After Johnson married his wife, Sharon Johnson, in the early 2000s, the two went on adventures from Mount Kilimanjaro and Patagonia to New Zealand and the Alps. At the expo, the couple gave presentations on their trips. In 2019, the two talked about their road trip to Banff National Park in Alberta. The presentation centered on how they trained their dog for the long trip. The two later divorced, but they were life partners, Sharon Johnson said.
