In 2004, our founder (Scott Hunter) chose to begin work on a new company that would make better packs for hikers and backpackers.  Working with friends Grant Golden (Pinedale, WY) and Scott Teuscher (Burlington, VT), he began to design packs as CHANGING LEAF DESIGNS.

Logo for Changing Leaf Designs (2004-2005)

CLD focused on designing a pack that used a series of modules to let the user customize their pack to specific activities.   In January of 2005, Scottdeveloped a plan to move forward, and entered the Wyoming10K Entrepreneurship Competition where CLD was selected as a finalist and got a lot of interest.  The design though, needed work.  When tested issues were found:  all modules had to fit in a limited space (which was very difficult!!!).  Also, when the pack was tested without modules, the remaining pack was top-heavy and caused low back strain.

With the discoveries made, Scott went back to the drawing board, and began working to solve these problems with the company’s next step forward.

Banner with Logo for the Pingora Pack Company (2006-2009)

In April of 2006, following an inspirational trip to  Cirque of the Towers in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, Changing Leaf Designs was reborn as the Pingora Pack Company.  In the three years that followed, Scott continued to work on the modular pack designs that had been started at CLD – and, while on trail in the summer of 2007, he discovered a method that solved both of the problems with the early CLD prototypes.

With the new designs in hand, Scott filed for his first patent for the modular backpack technology in 2008.  This new technology allowed any number of modules to be connected at any point on the back panel, and supported reconfiguration that made the design more comfortable than any other fixed-point connection pack.

Pingora Pack Company was brought with Scott to Babson College, where it continued to grow and evolve.  With the help of a team of students at Babson (Scott Hunter, Seth Avis, Tim Igo, Kristopher Lindonen, and Marcia Buiser), a revised plan was developed between August and December 2008.   The plan was very strong, and generated a tremendous amount of interest in the work being done to prepare for launch.  As such, Pingora Pack Company was selected for the Babson Entrepreneurship Intensity Track in January of 2009.

Vedavoo's Current Logo, the Teton Torch

While in the EIT program at Babson, Scott Hunter and partner Seth Avis proceeded to refine the concepts behind the company. The Pingora Pack Company became Vedavoo in April of 2009, and, following Scott’s graduation in May, Vedavoo, Inc. was launched in June of 2009.

Since that date, we have worked to ensure that our company stays focused on our core goal:  Build Durable, Versatile Gear for the Road Less Traveled

If you have ideas about how we can add to this history, or would like to learn more about our journey – please send us a message