Nick Welihozkiy has become an expert in adapting, a helpful trait as he launches the Wrascal Carrier. Photo courtesy of Wrascal
If the name Nick Welihozkiy sounds familiar, there are quite a few places you might know him from. Maybe you heard of him when he was at the peak of his 17-year-long hammer throw career, where he was a multi-time All-American champ who competed for Stanford University and entered into a handful of Olympic trials. Or perhaps it was when he worked as a patent clerk, or when he researched infectious disease in Washington, D.C. Or maybe it’s because he was one of the original staffers at that little West Coast start-up called LinkedIn. What you probably didn’t know? The man likes to sew.
“I would come home and jump upstairs to the loft in our apartment and that sewing machine would be rocking,” he says. “I kept it quiet for a long time because there’s that stigma of this big, strong guy, who loves the outdoors (I’m wearing cowboy boots right now), but who loves to sew. But I truly like to sew, and I’ve always been tweaking my outdoor gear because nothing was ever good enough.”
Those late nights tinkering with needle and thread? They’re the reason this Silicon Valley professional, 33, is at the helm of a company about to redefine the outdoor bag game with the launch of the Wrascal Carrier, an all-in-one, tough-as-nails bag that can be configured six different ways to adapt to any situation. The Wrascal, which debuted at Outdoor Retailer, went on sale Tuesday and functions as both a compression roll, a big-gear hauler, a slim tote bag, a tote, a gym duffle, and a messenger bag.
The Wrascal Carrier converts into six different types of bags. Photo courtesy of Wrascal
And if anyone knows the advantages of adapting to any situation, it’s Welihozkiy, who once almost succumbed to dehydration just outside of Yosemite.
“A buddy of mine and I started hiking around this really gorgeous reservoir,” he remembers. “We got to the first river and it was dried up—no big deal. We hiked another eight miles, and by the time we got to the third creek and it was dry, we knew we were in trouble.”
With their water stores almost empty, yet unable to reach the water in the steep-sided reservoir, the duo finally located water in the middle of the night by rappelling down 35 feet from a bridge to one of the only rivers that was still running nearby.
“We sat down there for an hour laughing our butts off. We had made it, and that situation really resonated with me, “ Welihozkiy says. “You have to know how to handle it emotionally when something goes wrong, because something always goes wrong—even if it’s a shoelace breaking. But now I know I’m good. I can handle it.”
And that wasn’t the first—or last—time he would be in a situation that required quick thinking. Like the time a freak snowstorm trapped him at his campsite in the Sierras. Or the time life threw a “wrench in the machine” and suddenly he was unemployed in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Nick Welihozkiy competed in a handful of Olympic trials for the hammer throw.
“I was borderline contemplating suicide over going back to that life—I just thought, ‘I can’t do cubicle world again; I just can’t do it’,” he says. “I needed to be outside; I needed a change in environment. I actually became a clinical massage therapist and linked back up with the Stanford track and field team. Then I was traveling with them all the time.”
In 2012, he decided to give his Olympic dreams one last shot, and while packing for the trials, he grew frustrated by the number of bags he needed to bring with him.
“I wanted to pack a heavy coat but I didn’t want to wear it,” he says. “It was so simple—I would wrap it up like I’d Saran Wrap a hamstring with ice. Let’s wrap a jacket.”
Calling the first multi-purpose bag he created a “piece of sh*t”—a fabric glue and Velcro creation that still hangs in his studio—it was the start of Wrascal. Fifty-four prototypes later, and Welihozkiy is debuting his creation with the help of a pretty interesting group of employees (many of who flocked from LinkedIn and Netflix). It’s a far cry from a life of locker room huddles and adjusting swivel chairs, but for Welihozkiy, this is one change he’s got in the bag.
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