Prior to our involvement with the Nantahala Outdoors Center, the NOC had a long history of being the premier provider of Outdoor Adventures and producing many Olympic athletes. It was the place to learn to raft and experience the outdoors. Over time, the NOC’s brand suffered as the company became over leveraged and lost its dedication to the founding mission. An undefined guest experience and a lack of process led to the failure of its core philosophy. With our investment, we pushed to recalibrate the culture of NOC to deliver the level of expertise and customer service that the brand was originally built on. As a result, the brand has returned to its core tenets. We are changing people’s lives as they truly experience the outdoors for the first time, and additionally, the company’s financial goals have matched this internal success.

The culture change at the NOC revolved around its strategic values. Five Stand assisted the management team in implementing a series of standards regulating the hiring process and the delivery of the guest experience. This process established benchmarks by which the company and the employees would be measured against and held accountable. We then created metrics to measure whether or not these standards were being adhered to and delivered upon. Over time, we created a culture built on exceeding these standards. The result was tremendous, and the NOC is now recognized again for its top of the line customer service and authentic outdoor experience.

Five Stand Capital invested in the Nantahala Outdoor Center after a period of turmoil following the retirement of the company founders. They have brought stability to the NOC and restored the confidence of the employees in the future of the company. Clay Courts and Jerry Harrison, the partners in Five Stand Capital, have personally spent an amazing amount of time in hands on work at the NOC and in mentoring the leadership team. I have been most pleased to see the degree to which they have attempted to maintain the values and vision of the company founders.

Payson Kennedy
Founder and retired President
Nantahala Outdoor Center

Five Stand’s impact on No Boundaries Trucking Group centers around our experience in scaling up businesses and identifying the pitfalls of scaling a company through acquisitions. Our CEO is well-respected and experienced in the trucking industry; he leads the company with a focus on growth in areas that align with our expertise. More importantly, as we identify potential growth, we integrate technology platforms and performance metrics to enhance our ability to manage and track the performance of the business.

Today, NBT is one of the largest FedEx Ground service providers in the nation and has brought new technologies to the industry that haven’t been utilized before.

Scram Systems acquired the Five Stand portfolio company Gryphex in 2012. Five Stand originally became involved with Gryphex after the firm waivered under a number of different management teams. Five Stand stepped in and took direct control over the company, corrected the product problems, increased the roll out and financial performance of the company, and ultimately secured the Scram Systems acquisition. This deal exemplifies how our operational experience allows us to not only salvage an investment but also make it a success story.

“Five Stand Capital provided the funding and management expertise needed to take the Gryphex beyond the start up phase. The partners, Jerry Harrison and Clay Courts, brought their management and marketing expertise into the Gryphex office and worked hand and hand with the executive team and engineering staff to ensure a successful launch of the product. Their contacts in the community and ability to network proved invaluable in opening doors to potential customers, while their experience establishing relationships with vendors helped keep production costs to a minimum. Simply put, we could not have found a better partner to help us turn our vision into reality.”

Fred Kemper: Gryphex Senior Project Manager

In 2015 Five Stand invested in Lawn.com, a managed service provider, as a secondary investor. Lawn.com manages the quality of the lawn service delivery as opposed to just providing the lawn services. Five Stand’s past experience with a number of similar companies enabled us to assist the management team in a variety of ways. Our primary focus was establishing technology platforms that the company could utilize to generate key metrics to measure their internal success. Our investment in Lawn.com is still in its early stages, but we continue to gain momentum internally and realize positive growth within the company.

PTI Systems exists as a partnership between Five Stand, their internal management team, and Source Capital. Five Stand, while not the lead investor on the transaction, facilitated the closing between the founder, the new leadership team and remains enthusiastic about the performance of PTI going forward.