Lauren Heerschap.

Lauren Heerschap owns Brunton International, a Riverton, Wyoming-based outdoor equipment manufacturer producing precision compasses, optics, and outdoor navigation instruments used by hunters, hikers, military personnel, and scientific field researchers worldwide.

Brunton has been a recognized name in precision outdoor equipment for over 125 years, and under her leadership the company has continued its legacy of American manufacturing while expanding into modern product categories including GPS-integrated optics and specialty professional instruments. She was named the 2025 SBA Wyoming Small Business Person of the Year. Heritage outdoor equipment brands are one of the more distinctive categories of American manufacturing - the ones that have survived and competed against offshore manufacturers did it by combining deep product expertise, American production, and channel loyalty within specialty outdoor retail. Woman-owned manufacturers sustaining multi-generation Wyoming brands represent a particularly important pattern in American industrial entrepreneurship: stewardship and modernization of heritage brands through disciplined product development, channel management, and manufacturing reinvestment. Brunton is the kind of business Americans assume no longer exists at scale, and the fact that it does is the result of specific operational choices Heerschap has made.