The Sendero Less Traveled
When Hunter Harlow, BS ’10, graduated from Baylor University with a degree in geosciences/geology, he didn’t imagine taking the road less traveled.
It all started with an idea to create a cooler hat for Big Bend National Park; Sendero Hat Co. created a fun design that included a topographic map inside the bill of the hat.
Soon enough, they rebranded to Sendero Provisions Co. and went from packing up hundreds of boxes during their lunch break to hiring about 20 full-time staff and operating their own warehousing, fulfillment and distribution.
Today, the brand is international.
“It’s wild. We’re in a few stores in France, a few in the UK, Germany, Spain and Japan,” Harlow said. “Two years ago we sold our 100,000th hat and now we’re at our 300,000th. And the fun thing now is that it’s not just hats. We’ve got an in-house fashion team and often our question is — what else do we want in our closets? Almost everything I wear now is Sendero.”
Harlow credits a lot of business success to the STEM mindset he developed in school.
“It teaches you how to critically think, how to problem solve, pattern recognition, being a self-taught learner, and then being able to apply it, especially geoscience,” Harlow said. “It’s the same thing I do with Sendero. I take all of these different aspects of business or running a fashion brand or e-com or wholesale or supply chain or design, production, sourcing, and then bring them all together to make a product.”
Sendero Provisions Co. continues to create a lifestyle and they’re always inviting others to be a part of it, especially Baylor students looking for work experience. The group loves being involved with Baylor through internships, speaking at the business school, etc.
“We hope to continue to be a part of the community and pour into it,” Harlow said. “I wouldn’t be here doing this in Waco without Baylor — I’m incredibly thankful.”