In a small shop tucked away in the Duluth hillside, Zach Sullivan, ‘17, organizes pieces of fabric on a large wooden work table. He drops a dark blue leather circle on top of a partially sewn yellow nylon panel. “That’s actually a fun combo,” he says, unspooling a length of blue webbing and holding it next to the rest. It’s an assemblage of parts that will become a water bottle holder that he calls the Feed Bag. “Maybe we should make that one of the standard color options for this one.”

Sullivan graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) with a degree in environmental and outdoor education, and now owns and operates ROMP (RAD Outdoor Multi Purpose) bags, a small manufacturer of outdoor-related bags based in Duluth, Minnesota. But when Sullivan started his journey at UMD, he hadn’t yet discovered his passion for sharing nature with others, and hadn’t channeled his interests into creating outdoor gear. 

Sense of Place

Sullivan started at UMD studying accounting, but after two years and experiences with the Recreational Sports Outdoor Program (RSOP), he turned to a path pursuing a passion for place-based studies and adventures. He would eventually graduate with an environmental and outdoor education major through the College of Education and Human Service Professions, which would help him share the outdoors with future clients and customers.

One of Sullivan’s favorite classes, Field Interpretation, was taught by Tim Bates. Bates was an adjunct faculty member of applied human sciences (AHS) and associate director of RSOP. The class centered around understanding and interpreting the ecology, biology and history of a place. It was a model for bringing clients outside, and deepened Sullivan’s understanding of local ecology and history.

“I definitely spent a lot of time looking at Tim’s heels, following him up some hill or through a swamp. We’d go to bogs in that class and you’d be waist‑deep in the bog talking about pitcher plants and spruce trees,” he says. “Is there a better class than that?”

Bates would become one of Sullivan’s most impactful mentors at UMD and beyond.

Coming home

After graduation, Sullivan applied some of those very lessons while working as a wilderness guide from Maine to Colorado. “My degree set me up for that job really well,” he says. “Almost every class that I took at UMD directly corresponded to some role I was playing.”

After those years away, though, he wanted to come back to Minnesota. “Going to UMD, I felt a really strong connection to Duluth,” he said.

When he returned to the Twin Ports, he reached out to Bates, who had recently co-founded the Duluth Folk School and was looking for help. Sullivan worked on building a new space taking shape in Duluth’s Lincoln Park Craft District, learning more about making things and forming even stronger connections with Bates and the community as he went. “It was fun to see this space transition and know I'd had a little part of guiding it along the way,” says Sullivan.

The Folk School also provided Sullivan with something he’d longed for since graduating: connection. It had come easily at UMD — from clubs, to the gym and intramurals, to simply meeting friends across campus, it seemed like there were endless opportunities to run into friends and make new ones. “People have their home, they have their work, but a lot of people need a third space that is neither of those,” he says, a gathering place for community and conversation, both planned and spontaneous.

“This space has really been that for me.”

Sullivan learned how to use a sewing machine, too. He eventually bought his own, and began making gear. Influenced by his background in the outdoors and his passion for biking, he soon realized that the bags he was sewing for himself might be something other people would find useful, too.

Starting in September of 2020, Sullivan began channeling those passions into ROMP Bags. The company now sells products locally and across the country.

“Studying accounting got me into that business mindset and helped me learn the language of business. Going into environmental and outdoor education was more of my passion, and brought me more connections to Duluth and to UMD,” Sullivan said. “ROMP Bags incorporates both — being able to run a business and know the language, but also knowing what people want and making things that are useful.”

Though he’s busy with ROMP, Sullivan still taps into his desire to share the outdoors with others through work as a Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA) guide in the summer, and continues building community with the Duluth Folk School as a board member. 

A legacy of connection

Back in his workshop, Sullivan is talking as he works, explaining the dimensions, the choices of varied materials for texture, function, and feel.

With the hum and clack of the old industrial sewing machine, he puts the last stitches in the Feed Bag and snips the thread. It’s all raw edges and outside seams, the colorful contrast hidden behind rows of black stitching and a wall of yellow nylon. But when he turns the bag rightside out, all that changes. The seams tuck away, and the contrast of color and texture reappears. “I love the turn,” he says.

He sets the finished Feed Bag on the desk, and we talk about Bates.

Zach’s friend and mentor, Tim Bates, passed away in late 2025, while this story was in production. His death sent ripples through the Duluth Folk School, UMD and the broader Duluth maker and outdoor communities.

“He was a huge connector,” Sullivan said, “His connections brought people together.”

Sullivan remembers Bates in those flashes of memory – in bogs, on trails and in the Folk School. The lessons and the way that Bates treated those around him are what stick with him most, and that’s a legacy Sullivan hopes to carry forward.

“When I’m guiding Boundary Waters trips, I think back to some of the things he taught me — like counting the whorls of a pine tree to see how old it is. If we’re going through a burn area, I can say, ‘This burn must have happened at least this long ago because we can count the whorls on this tree,’” he says. Like those seedlings after a fire, these moments of wonder in the natural world can have a lasting impact, he says. “It’s a way for people to learn locally and then take that knowledge home. Tim was really good at using all those aspects of something and helping you think about what they mean.”

From building practical and fun gear with ROMP, to fostering community at the Duluth Folk School, to making moments for clients in the wilderness, Sullivan works to connect people, and to share the passion for nature that he learned at UMD, and from mentors like Bates.