Business : :

Rock Haus owner traded skateboarding for climbing

By Jacob Fullmer

April 23, 2008 | For eight years he rode his skateboard for eight hours a day, seven days a week. He received multiple sponsorships from skate and snowboard companies. But at 25, Trevor Berrett found something worth letting it all go.

"I'm addicted to climbing," he said.

Berrett, now 34, is owner of Logan's premier indoor rock climbing center, Rock Haus. Many people raise an eyebrow at the name. Rock House was already taken by a guitar shop in another state, and haus is German for house. He wanted the gym to be different.

Berrett was introduced to climbing during one of those many hours skating. On the same day, he bought a rope, a pair of Five Ten brand shoes and a Black Diamond harness and belay device without ever having been climbing.

"Well, they sell it in packages," he said with a knowing smile. Berrett has given similar package discounts to climbers buying lots of gear.

He climbed the following four days straight and approached his new sport with near the same fervor as he did skating. His first year, he logged more than 120 days of outdoor climbing.

An alternative career change wasn't the only big event in his life. Berrett met his wife, Kristi, working at a Michael's craft store when he was 17. When he was 21, he had the opportunity to leave Utah and immerse himself more heavily in the skating world. However, he also would have left Kristi. Berrett forfeited the new sponsorship opportunity, which would have turned his hobby into a viable job, and the couple married when he was 21.

"It was probably a good thing for me to get out of the crew I would have been skating with. They were just partiers. It was either be a family, or go to the shady side of the block," he said.

Anthony Richards, the sales manager for the Rock Haus, said he has known his boss longer than all other Rock Haus employees. Richards was just 12 when his sister married Berrett. While discussing his brother-in-law's abilities in climbing and skating, he said Berrett is "naturally good at almost anything."

Keeping his family in mind, Berrett worked in his father's company building and desiging architectural trusses. He restricted his climbing to three days a week - minimum. His first four years of climbing, he never set foot inside a gym and now, he owns one. He continued to work in the construction industry but never saw the value of a college education.

"I've always believed that if you worked hard, something would come of the job," said Berrett.

In 1999, Berrett and his wife separated and divorced. He had just completed a house in Lehi for the family and wanted his two toddlers, Harper and Camden, to maintain a stable environment. The kids stayed in the new house and Berrett moved his tent to the mountains. He didn't need to claim the camping gear in the divorce ­ he said it was always his.

He drew architectural designs from his campsite, by lamplight if need be, and went climbing most days after work. His children would hike three miles into the mountains with him to visit his base camp, which moved between the Provo and Cottonwood canyons.

"That's what he always wanted to do: Live in the mountains," Richards said.

Berrett said he began to realize he didn't like being away from society. So he moved back in with Kristi and the kids, at first on a separated basis. The move was good. Richards said the couple "worked things out in time."

Eventually, Berrett said he got bored in his father's truss business.

"I'd been doing it for 14 years!" he said.

Over Thanksgiving of 2002, Richards said Berrett talked with him about starting a climbing gym. He encouraged Berrett to do it. During three years of planning, the long time builder began searching for the dream community where his gym and his family would fit in. The Salt Lake Valley was out of the question because he didn't want to compete with his friend, Jeff Pedersen, who owns the Momentum climbing gym in Sandy. Berrett was introduced to Logan when he helped a friend move to the valley. He said the mountains drew him.

In 2006, Berrett ran full-page newspaper advertisements announcing the opening of the gym. A copy of the ad is posted on the wall of his office. It reads, "The experiment begins on March 20." Up until the opening of Momentum in January 2007, Rock Haus was the largest indoor climbing center in Utah with 20,000 square feet of climbing walls open for exploring hands and feet. That's 20,000 square feet that only Berrett and two other consistent route "setters" get to plan climbing routes for.

They didn't turn a profit their first year in business. Or the second. He said they hope to have some profit on their third. His detailed business plan allows the first two years to be growing years, and he still designs trusses on the side. But Berrett said he's happy.

"It's hard to justify money for a smile on your face, you know what I mean?" he said.

His gym, he said, is built for the size of a surrounding 700,000 population. He's relying on what he believes is a 130,000 population within a likely driving distance and "30,000 transient students." Richards, the sales manager, said the gym has grown from 256 people visiting in August of 2006 to 2,596 visitors last month. Rock Haus has sold a total of 1,400 monthly membership passes since its opening. Momentum, with the help of the surrounding population, has been able to amass 1,500 memberships in less than one year.

The gym's opening date is a key turning point in Trevor's life. He can tell you just how long ago everything opened ­ down to the day. March 20, 2006, also represents the beginning of a personal two-year sacrifice.

To stay focused on business, Berrett committed himself to climb as minimally as possible for the first two years of the gym's opening. His first year in the sport, he logged 120 days of climbing. Last year, he said he only did about four days on the ropes and ten days bouldering ­ a more technical style of climbing done at lower heights, its purpose is comparable to practicing free throws in basketball.

He wanted to make sure his business could keep the doors open.

"I know myself well enough that I usually do what I tell myself to do," he said.

Berrett's grin is still frequently seen in the gym along with his military-styled haircut and long-armed, long-legged body that resides in dark khaki pants, a black zip-up hoodie and Chaco sandals. Despite the relaxed appearance, his analytical personality shows through. He knows his business plan as well as he knows his clientele.

"I can't say that I don't love everyone who climbs at this gym," he said.

From employees to grade-schoolers in for an afternoon climb, Berrett knows them all. And knows them well.

He points to a girl wearing a backpack, "That girl there can give you 120 numbers of the pi sequence." Someone asking for shoes and chalk - "He was the first local to climb the 5.14 route in the canyon." (At one time, Logan Canyon was home to the hardest climb ever completed throughout the world.) In a lull of the daily tasks, he teases an employee that she hates him for scheduling her during next weekend's climbing trip. After two years of too little climbing, Berrett said he works to schedule time for his family, business and self.

"I'm a full-fledged full-time worker, full-time family man and a climber. And that's different than a lot of climbers are," he said.

Along with renewing the calluses on his fingertips, Berrett said he plans to gain new route-setting inspiration by climbing outside more.

"It's not a plastic world out there…If I plan a climbing trip, it's in blood," he said.

Berrett wanted to share his love of climbing and grow a unique climbing community. As a gym owner, he also inherited, by default, some community responsibilities outside of the business. Barrett maintains and replaces unsafe anchors fastened into the side of many Logan Canyon rock faces. April 11, his gym will host an event sponsored by Petzel, a popular manufacturer of climbing gear, to raise money for route preservation in Logan Canyon.

Keeping a climbing community alive, and growing, requires a bit of creativity and a lot of commitment. Financial realities encourage most climbing gyms to hold local and national competitions to raise revenue and recruit new climbers. To prepare for a recent competition, Berrett, one of his employees and some volunteers locked themselves into a temporarily "closed to the public" portion of the gym to bolt up new, unseen routes. During that week, he spent some nights sleeping on the foot-and-a-half thick padded floors of the gym. It is his Haus, after all.

During their last boulder competition, Berrett told the Hard News Café he wants to do three local competitions each year "but doing one a year has been pretty hard."

Some nationally organized competitions require a gym to train a team before they can host their particular competition. Running a team would require extra coaching and practice time. All of this looms over Berrett as one more thing to be done in his haus. But, he said a team sounds fun. One of his favorite things to see in his gym is when new climbers get over their initial fear. He said a boy in a wheelchair recently came in and climbed an entire route without the use of his legs.

"Now, that's awesome," he said.

If the responsibility of running his business ever gets too much for him to bear, Berrett can find solace that his two-year sacrifice of climbing is over. Since the gym's two year anniversary, Berrett has taken two trips to Moab and one near Joe's Valley outside of Price. He's busy climbing the next few weekends, as well.

DM
DM