NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL EVENT

2008 Going Green Conference: Building, Technology & Practices

Thursday, October 9, 2008, 7:30-11:45 a.m., Doubletree Hotel, Rohnert Park

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CamelBak readies green headquarters for move

PETALUMA – CamelBak Products LLC, best known among outdoors enthusiasts and the military for hands-free backpack canteens, is just a few weeks away from relocating its headquarters to south Petaluma and is vying for national recognition of its new environmentally friendly offices.

The company is set to move in early August to nearly 30,000 square feet at 2000 S. McDowell Blvd., part of a recently built two-building class A office complex. CamelBak would be the first company in the 144,000-square-foot development, which developer RNM Properties of San Francisco calls South McDowell Landing.

The company currently has its 90 headquarters employees in about the same amount of space at 1318 Redwood Way at the north side of the city.

President and CEO Sally McCoy joined the company in late 2006 and started a search for a new location that aligned the corporate image of the outdoors with fresh indoor air and ample daylight as well as energy independence via efficient lighting and less dependence on automobiles.

RNM brought in San Francisco-based Huntsman Architectural Group to offer examples on green building at the location overlooking a 500-acre estuary.

Ms. McCoy found many of the goals for the corporate image already were part of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating systems developed by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Working closely with Huntsman and improvements general contractor Devcon, CamelBak registered in February with the council for certification under the LEED for Commercial Interiors 2.0 rating system. The company has to prove it earned at least 21 of the 57 possible points to achieve certification in areas such as water efficiency, materials reuse and site selection.

Many of the pieces of office furniture and some of the warehouse racking will move to the new location, giving CamelBak opportunity for reuse credit. What won’t be used will be recycled. The company even is going as far as not using cardboard boxes for the move. Rather, a moving company will provide reusable plastic containers with wheels. Another green feature includes arranging the offices and cubicles to bring the most daylight – said to be a productivity booster – to each desk.

Ms. McCoy declined to elaborate on the cost of the new headquarters, saying only that it was not as expensive as some suggest.

The listed value of CamelBak’s tenant improvements, including mechanical, plumbing and electrical systems, was $1.03 million, according to city building permits. That doesn’t include the cost of documenting compliance with the rating system, which can run from several thousand dollars to tens of thousands.

Founded in 1989, CamelBak now has more than 250 employees in four locations plus several sales offices and a distribution center in San Diego. New York-based Bear Stearns Merchant Banking, which manages $5 billion in private-equity investments in middle-market companies, purchased CamelBak in 2003 for $210 million.

Though it bears the Bear Stearns name for the moment, the private-equity firm operated independently and detached last month from troubled The Bear Stearns Companies, now owned by JPMorgan & Company.