How U.S. Sherpa’s Winooski storefront —and its founder — bridge continents
Ongyel Sherpa behind the counter of the U.S. Sherpa storefront in Winooski
Walking into the recently opened U.S. Sherpa store on Main Street, Winooskians can find rows of wooly mittens, fleece slippers and woven multicolored tote bags lining the shelves and racks inside. They’re all handmade — and the latest entries in a story that started on the opposite side of the world, one day in 1998, when owner Ongyel Sherpa picked up the phone in his parents’ busy house in the capital of Nepal.
The family lived in Kathmandu, where his parents had come to find work in the booming trekking business centered on Mt. Everest in the Himalayas, the world’s highest peak. Colloquially, the word “Sherpa” often describes someone familiar with the terrain who accompanies a hiking expedition to carry excess gear and guide the party. But the term actually refers to ethnic groups, both Tibetian and Nepali, who hail from villages up in the mountains. Ongyel Sherpa is of this origin and was born into the profession — both of his parents were guides, and life was hard, insecure.
“A lot of the time it's family-to-family passing,” he said recently. “Then someone can be like, “Oh, yeah, I can vouch for this person,” and the hiring for trips is very word of mouth.”
There comes a point, he said, where your only stable options are farming or, if you’re smart and skilled enough, tourism. As a teenager, he was looking for jobs overseas and finding little luck.
But then his family’s phone rang. An American doctor who had trekked with Sherpa’s parents wanted to reconnect. Over the course of a conversation, the American offered to sponsor Sherpa’s visa to come live with the doctor’s family in the U.S. — in Burlington, Vermont.
“I came home and my mom was knitting … I said, ‘Mom, you wouldn't believe what has happened, I said look at this.’ We were just jumping with tears. And within a few months or so I took my first airplane to the U.S..”
That was in 1998. After his arrival at 18, he attended two years of high school in Burlington before continuing on to study business at Champlain College with the support of the doctor’s family.
For a senior capstone project in 2007, he launched U.S. Sherpa, a business bringing natural fiber handmade goods to Vermont while supplying what would grow to over 300 jobs for artisans in the Himalayan region.
“I felt lucky (to come to the U.S.), and at the same time I also had the responsibility to give back to these communities back home in Nepal.”
At first, Sherpa sold just to people in his circles. “I definitely saw the market, where people definitely like these handmade products from Nepal,” he said.
The game changed when he found a local retailer, the Peace and Justice Center’s shop, that said it would carry Sherpa’s goods. From there the company expanded its reach with local retailers like Outdoor Gear Exchange and some REI locations.
Slippers and woven tote bags line the shelves of the Winooski storefront
Then in August, after sixteen years of opperation, Sherpa opened the Winooski storefront, his first. Today, woven tote bags and wool goods, all made by people in Sherpa’s home region stock the shelves of the Main Street storefront.
He said there’s been some heavy lifting to educate suppliers about how the company operates, how workers can’t just “push a button” on a conveyor belt to speedily press out identical machine-made orders.
“These are handmade and coming from countries like Nepal where things are very limited, the machine technology infrastructure,” he said. “So I want to respect that, you know, value that. So I call it this slow fashion. And it’s part of our challenges, to keep up as we grow … how do we keep the balance?”
He said wool products take the longest to knit. A pair of mittens can take a worker 12 hours to make before they are lined and processed for quality control in Kathmandu and eventually packaged and shipped to the U.S.
Sherpa recalled how his mother used to bring in income knitting hats for a similar business: “It’s a very traditional form, kind of what my mom did back then Now we have up to 300 knitters, something I’m super proud of and something that made me say. ‘I want to do this.’”
Sherpa is involved in operations on both sides of the geographical coin. The company has a staffed office in Kathmandu, where Sherpa’s sister manages logistics. For him it’s a personal operation; he’s down in details like wool distribution and scarf patterns.
Additionally, the U.S. Sherpa website also connects visitors with information about his family’s trekking and homestay services in Nepal. “We started providing homestay for the medical students and doctors in my parents’ home in Katmandu, which would mean jobs and income for them and also peace of mind for folks going from here — you have this wonderful family who will come pick you up from the airport and show you how to get around, and if you need to do trekking, they will help you do that,” he said.
Now in his own storefront, Sherpa is plotting out new angles for his brand’s product design.
“We are now opening the access to much more variety, with customers, versus wholesale, (which) is much more specific,” he said.
Sherpa said Vermont dovetails well with Nepal, its outdoor-forwardness and necessity for warm wool in the winter among the factors.
Wool goods promote the outdoor lifestyle regional to both Nepal and Vermont
“That’s one of our missions, to really promote this active outdoor lifestyle,” he said. “And I think that’s also for me, when I lived with the doctor’s family, I think seeing that was just like, ‘Wow.’ All of a sudden, doing it for recreation — ‘Wow, how fun’ — you know? In Nepal, you go to the mountain for trekking as a job where you have to do all of this, and now, wow, it’s playing outside. Like being a little kid.”
For the last three years the company’s mountainous logo has featured a collage of the Mt. Everest and Mt. Mansfield skylines, rendered in the national red color of Nepal and the green of Vermont: a symbol of the two countries Sherpa has straddled all his adult life.
“Now I’ve been in Vermont more than I’ve been in Nepal. However, the way I grew up in Nepal, the transition — the society there is that they teach you (that) we are Sherpas. We have to take care of our clients. So there was that really weird mindset, that kind of, like, shyness, like ‘Oh, they are Westerners, everything is very nice.’”
He said it took time to adjust, to cross that barrier, the wall of “how do I talk, how should I act, how do I enter a room?” he said. Sometimes, it's still there.
Sherpa now lives in South Burlington with his family, a short drive from the storefront.
“I definitely always liked Winooski. I loved the city and the downtown, and obviously, I think the diversity was big for me. Such a small city with such huge diversity.”
Sherpa said reasons like that are why he keeps coming back to Vermont. The rolling hills, tiny towns and skies full of stars do it for him, too.
“I had no idea whether I would be in Vermont or how long,” he said. “And now living here for 25 years, raising family, my wife and kids. And I think there’s a lot about that that I have traveled to other parts of the U.S., but every time, I can’t wait to come back.”
U.S. Sherpa’s storefront is located at 235 Main Street in Winooski in the first unit, overlooking the street. More information about the business and trekking services can be found on their website.
