Tundra Gear is a California based winter hat company, which started out in the garage of our founder's father. Since those humble beginnings, the 'little winter hat company that could' has grown into a world famous hat company. Yeah, we might still be doing business out of our dad's garage, but whatever, we're world famous now! Heres our story.

Tundra Gear was founded by Aras Baskauskas, a former collegiate athlete and the winner of CBS's Survivor: Exile Island. It was while in business school that he came up with the idea that led to the creation of Tundra Gear. Drawing from his experiences with the family business (Baskauskas's father founded Baltic Rim, one of the first US importers of Russian hats(ushankas)); Aras put a decidedly unique twist on the Russian fur hat.

THE IDEA: The Russian fur hat, standing by itself, is perhaps one of the warmest and most durable winter hats on the planet, but hadn't found much acceptance in the United States. Surely there had to be a way to put this high quality product on the heads of American's in cold climates, but how? The answer was to offer the fur hats in a wide variety of colors and accessorize them with officially licensed college, NHL and NFL logo winter hat pins. Who is seeking individuality, solidarity and warm ears? Football fans! Could there be a better winter hat for rabid fans braving the frigid nighttime temperatures of NFL and college stadiums. Tundra Gear found its niche 'the football-uber-fan'.

THE PROBLEM: Of course, as great an idea as Aras had come up with, he had no way of implementing his plan. Broke and living upstairs at his father's house, Aras took out a small loan and started Tundra Gear. That initial seed money was enough to buy a couple of reams of paper and a cell phone (a used one at that), but not much else. To be honest, at 24 years old, the young Baskauskas didn't have much of a shot at getting his business off the ground. As they say, ignorance is bliss, and because Aras was never the sharpest tool in the shed, he didn't understand the overwhelming odds Tundra Gear was up against. If the kid was going to pull this one off he needed help, and lots of it.

THE HELP: Help came in the form of a friend. Out one night in Hollywood, Aras's close friend James Branaman explained that while at dinner, he had been approached by a casting director about the TV show Survivor. James made it clear that he wasn't cut out to Survive out on an island and wasn't interested in the opportunity. Upon hearing this, Aras offered up his services for the job. After a few phone calls, a bunch of face to face interviews and a slew of inoculations, Baskauskas found himself on an island in the middle of the Pacific, with nothing but a cooking pot and a machete. Somehow, 39 days later our guy was the last man standing and on May 14th, 2006 he was crowned Sole Survivor, taking home a check for $1,000,000.

THE OUTCOME: Now that Aras had a formidable war chest to play with, humble little Tundra Gear, which operated out of Aras' dad's garage, was positioned to become the behemoth of a winter hat company that it is today. First things first though, Aras needed to assemble a team of experts capable of building a successful organization. But alas, in a move typical of a rookie, Aras spent the majority of his money on taxes, cars and inventory and couldn't afford to hire real employees. So instead of looking far and wide for good help, Baskauskas instead turned to his childhood friends. The only guys he knew who would work for the company without a salary. After a couple of interesting conversations and the offer of free rent, Gabe Loeb (Vice President of Accounting), Daniel Utsinger (Vice President of Customer Service) and Rob Delaney (Vice President of Internet Marketing), agreed to join the Tundra Gear team. Each of these men, despite being completely ill-equipped for the job, brings to the table gifts that can't really be put into words or quantified.

So finally we were ready! Tundra Gear's doors opened to an overwhelming response. Our website received nearly 47 hits during its first month of operation. Our popular custom hats, now known as Tundra Hats, started flying off the shelves like hotcakes. We sold a total of 32 winter hats during the month of December alone. And get this, we became an international phenomenon when one of Rob's friends in Italy ordered a winter hat from us, which doesn't make much sense because his friend lives in the south of Italy, where it never really gets cold, but whatever, a sale is a sale. Believe it or not, its not only men who buy our hats, a couple of girls down the street came into the office one day and bought a couple pink hats from us too.

It's important for us not to get caught up in the glitz and glamour of being such an overwhelming success. The winter hats are for the people. Just like the customers we cater to, Tundra Gear doesn't take itself too seriously either - we're a company that insists on being unapologetically ourselves and most importantly, having fun. Just ask Daniel, he's our Customer Service guy, he'll tell you.

1500

The first known attempt to document European native costume is made by Frisian chief, Unico Manninga, who kept illustrations of the clothing worn by his ancestors. The drawings depicted fur hats and woolen hats with the brim cut so that it was possible to turn down the back and sides. By the turn of the century, these ear flap hats were popular all over Indo-Europe with sailors, hunters, peasants and wagoneers.

1618

The Russian Winter Hat (Ushanka) first found its way into the armies during the Thirty Years War. There were no regular uniforms for the peasant soldiers, so they wore their own clothes including their winter hats. Other soldiers soon discovered that the peasant ear flap hat was more comfortable than the stiff Spanish hat and adopted it. Eventually the style spread to officers and civilians all over Europe.

1900

Winter hats with ear flaps are functional, fashionable winter wear for over one third of the world's populations from the outer reaches of Siberia, to China, Mongolia, Europe and Russia.

1914

Fast Becoming a symbol of the Communist movement, the Russian Winter Hat (Ushanka) unites followers of Lenin throughout eastern Europe during the Russian Revolution.

1948

The Russian Winter Hat goes to the movies as Hollywood popularizes the "Russian Hat" in a literal barrage of World War II films such as "Mata Hari" and "Doctor Zhivago".

1962

Nikita Khrushchev storms the United Nations, going head to head with John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Ushanka (Russian Fur Hat) he wears makes an indelible impression on McCarthy era Americans.

1991

Capitalism triumphs in the Eastern Block. The Cold War is over and Russian Fur Hats slowly start making their way into the western world.

2005

Tundra Gear reintroduces the Russian Winter Hat as the Tundra Hat and offers the hat in 5 different colors with numerous NCAA and NFL logos. In no time the hat catches on in football stadiums across America, and the Tundra Hat becomes a must have for football fans all over the country.