Meet the crew that retrieves results

and a few dog toys too!

Our Story

Our owner, John McKinney, worked in the outdoor industry as a program facilitator and guide in a variety of areas. He spent time working as a Wilderness Canoe Guide in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota; as a Zipline Guide in Chattanooga, Tennessee; as a Outdoor Program Trip Leader at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC); and has done freelance guiding with various groups on multi-day backpacking trips on the Appalachian Trail and other backcountry locations.

When John graduated from UTC with a degree in Business Administration with a concentration in Human Resources, he started working for the local government. Within two years John had rose the ranks from a HR Intern, to a HR Project Assistant, to HR Generalist of three of the largest departments, including Recreation, in the city government responsible for 800 employees. All of this happened while John was attending night class's to achieve his Masters Degree of Business Administration (MBA).

John was approached by a nation wide private security company to become the Regional Human Resources Manager for more than 700 employees across six different states, while leading a team of Recruiters, HR Administrators, and a remote HR Generalist. John worked there for three years innovating recruiting processes and ultimately reducing costs related to HR/Staffing procedures by $160,000 annually.

With John's experience in leading successful HR teams to support unique industry challenges and high volume recruiting needs, he decided to start his dream of providing a high quality Human Resources services and professionals to companies that works specifically with the outdoor adventure industry. Thus HR Outfitter was born in August 2020.

HR Outfitter provides HR Consulting and Staffing Solutions to companies across the world within the outdoor industry. We have experience working with small and medium-sized companies across the United States, Canada, Chile, United Kingdom, Australia, Tanzania, and Antarctica.