Ramtect Wool Batting Ready for Retailers NOVEMBER 5, 2015 COMMENTS (0) DESIGN & ART, OUTDOOR  2 At the top of the escalators across from the Salt Palace business center at ORSM, many attendees may not have noticed the unassuming Ramtect booth, one of the unsung innovations entering the apparel market this fall. The company, which has been in the incubator stage for a couple of years now, launched a “Wool Demonstration Development” project at ORSM, along with a limited line of garments produced by Canada’s Spirit West, whose Owner Steve Bommer was on hand from Calgary, Alberta, to speak with international retailers. Ramtect USA has attended previous OR markets with its ecological-minded wool insulation product, but this was the first time craft jackets, vests and pants were ready for immediate order. Doug Hoschek is Ramtect’s outdoor director and one of the original co-inventors of Polarfleece in 1981. “Whatever the customer wants, the retailer will soon be told and asked to find it,” he said of the company’s come-to-market philosophy. Its development program focused on “average human beings” from three generations wear-testing the first line of “Essential” styles, primarily in high elevation forests and deserts surrounding Bend, OR. Both Polarfleece and Spirit West wool insulated garments stem from being ecologically minded. Their creeds are also concerned with the relation of living organisms to one another and, in turn, to their physical surroundings. Bommer and Hoschek both believe that the “locavore outdoorist” movement is increasingly important in the outdoor industry, and more specifically with Millennial consumers. This movement acts under the principle that the byproduct of wool is “as close to a food as possible,” and should, “be raised on a sheep that is allowed to live a very long animal life, properly cared for by human beings (ranchers),” said Bommer and Hoscheck. Hoschek said back in 1981 he developed Polarfleece with the same “locavore outdooris