I became acquainted with Heath Seiner because an embarrassing thing happened to me while squirrel hunting. Tl;dr: my original idea for hauling harvested squirrels didn’t pan out. I need a proper small game pouch if I’m going to hunt small game.
My market research revealed a dozen or more “strap vests” for upland hunting. Cue analysis paralysis. Except a vest made by Hunt REDI stood out to me early in my research. It seems well engineered. I like that its modular design is compatible with stuff I already use. It’s even made in the U.S., and it gets great reviews. I might have picked one up, but they’re still sold out of the configuration I like.
Putting it out there
The Hunt REDI blog is what drew me to the brand. Heath authors most of the posts, which are thoughtful and sincere. He puts it all out there, and a pair of articles struck a chord. One is about setting a good example for his daughters through founding his company. The other is about his youngest daughter’s interest in hunting. Go read them.
Heath eagerly accepted my invitation to interview for the Hunting Fatherhood podcast. He was apologetic about some initial scheduling conflicts arising from his daughter’s basketball games and his pheasant hunting road trip to Oklahoma. I took this as a sign of him making the most of life more than an inconvenience. I was lucky to connect with him over Squadcast on the last day of his pheasant trip.
It’s obvious that Heath is passionate about hunting. Driving 8 hours from southeast Missouri to chase pheasants takes commitment. And after a couple hard days in the field, he sat down to talk to me about hunting before he packed up and headed home. “Field research” is part of running a hunting equipment company, and nice work if you can get it.
Hold your loved ones close
Heath is more passionate about his family. He conveys as much with his eyes as he grins from ear to ear when talking about his teenage daughters and his wife. Some small part of that no doubt comes from their support and belief in his dream to start Hunt REDI.
We talked about making memories with the people we care about, and not taking them for granted. Also about losing people we love and hanging on to the artifacts that remind us of them. We manifest these themes, each in our own way, through hunting.
Heath also shared his story of launching a business. That’s hard under normal circumstances, but he did it in the middle of a pandemic. A silver lining, if there is one, is that the pandemic seems to be helping people rediscover the outdoors. This includes hunting, which is good if you’re selling hunting gear.
It’s been a strange year. COVID has made making memories with loved ones and business more difficult, if not a tad surreal. But not impossible. Take hope where you can get it.
Head over to the Hunting Fatherhood podcast to check out my interview with Heath.