Vapor Trail CEO Rory O’Loughlin poses inside the company’s new Factory Pro Shop, which opened for business in late March 2025.
What comes to mind when you think of Vapor Trail Archery? It might be easy to focus on the company’s award-winning, proven VTX bowstrings. Or maybe, its lineup of award-winning limb-driven rests that, like its bowstrings, have been industry stalwarts for a few decades running.
Others might know Vapor Trail as the parent company of innovative Stokerized Stabilizers, or in the past few months, as one of the companies creating some solid buzz at the 2025 ATA Show — that’s where Vapor Trail unveiled the new-for-2025 Victor limb-driven arrow rest, a design that Vapor Trail is calling the most-advanced limb-driven rest the industry has ever seen. The unique feature-packed design not only promises to help bowhunters, shooters and pro shops see more success, but it also pays homage to company founder Jarrod Victor Fondie, one of our industry’s most-talented innovators.
By any measure, the past months have been busy ones at Vapor Trail. In addition to bringing the exciting Victor to market and a slew of behind-the-scenes projects, the company also experienced a recent move. Back in March 2025, Vapor Trail moved its combined offices, factory and factory pro shop about a mile, from its previous location in a rather secluded industrial park, to a much more prominent Main Street location, in Anoka, Minnesota.
To sort it all out, Archery Business sat down recently with Vapor Trail CEO Rory O’Loughlin, a skilled adventure bowhunter who purchased the company back in 2020, and whose vision for innovating his company’s U.S.-made products seems to have no boundaries.
AB: How and why did your purchase of Vapor Trail Archery back in 2020 come about, and what major company changes have occurred since then?
O’Loughlin: “I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to acquire Vapor Trail in January of 2020. It was a perfect mix of passion and skill set. My passion for archery began as a kid, running around the woods with my brothers down in Texas with bows and arrows. The skill set came from spending almost 20 years in commercial financing — working with entrepreneurs and helping them grow and acquire their businesses. So when the opportunity to acquire Vapor Trail came along, I had the passion and skill set to immediately go to work. The largest changes since then would be our overall increased efficiencies across all departments. This makes everyone’s job here a lot easier — and makes it a lot easier to keep our customers happy.”
AB: Being a gear manufacturer and running a factory pro shop is a fairly unique mix; how did the pro shop angle come about?
O’Loughlin: “That decision did not come lightly — especially when we are 100% committed to our dealers. We’ve always had customers seeking us out and showing up at our front door, asking if they can buy an arrow rest or our bowstrings. We would never want to be the ‘Total Wine’ of archery shops, we are more like a microbrewery that happens to be open to the public for tastings. When you come visit us, it has that factory feel to it. There is only one brand of arrow rest on our shelves, one brand of bowstrings, one brand of stabilizers — and we offer a more in-depth look into our products and how they are made. It is a factory pro shop and it will always be that way. We are a manufacturer first, but we also want to share the experience with people who love our brand and share the same love for archery.”
AB: How has your company been affected by the recent tariff situation, which has seemingly impacted many aspects of the archery/bowhunting industry?
O’Loughlin: “Being a USA-made manufacturer definitely helps navigate the tariff terrain much easier than companies that have their products made overseas. However, it still impacts supply chains for sourcing materials, especially when you have over 50 parts that go into one product.
Unfortunately, I think we are all affected. The smarter companies are the ones insulating themselves even more by being USA made, and also diversifying their vendors so they can pivot when needed. I just hope this isn’t another excuse for vendors to raise prices again come early January. I feel like ever since Covid started, every year we experience a 5% to 10% increase when sourcing materials, and this gets really costly. We don’t like raising our prices to customers and dealers, but we want to stay in business, so in the end everyone is affected. We don’t make more money, and our margins stay the same, so if dealers are raising their prices in response as they should, it’s really the end-consumer who suffers. And that’s what really stings, because I want archery to be affordable to everyone.”
AB: Vapor Trail strings have been around since 1993, with many long-standing fans. What makes your strings different?
O’Loughlin: “Vapor Trail Archery was founded in 1993 by Jarrod Fondie, who was a skillful target archer. He won the Minnesota State Pro Championship an amazing 10 times, so if there is anyone who would know an advanced archery product compared to others, it would be him. Jarrod also grew tired of the ‘archery industry standard’ string material, so Vapor Trail’s VTX material was born. It features an entirely different DNA than the rest of what’s out there. The main difference is the higher percentage of vectran. This gives our strings superior strength, versatility, and performance under varying temperature and weather changes. In addition, not many people know this, but Jarrod Fondie is the actual inventor of limb-driven arrow rest technology. Jarrod and his contributions to the archery industry was a true blessing for us all.”
AB: Vapor Trail offers several arrow rests, including “The Victor” limb-driven design that is new for 2025. What makes The Victor a must-have for pro shops everywhere, and how many other rests do you offer currently?
O’Loughlin: “The really simple short explanation is that The Victor is the most-advanced limb-driven arrow rest on the market. Not to mention it is extremely compact and sexy looking as well. It fits on every bow out there, and weighs only 3.8 ounces. It offers full containment, top- or bottom-limb activation, and comes in six different color options that match the more popular field colors that bow manufacturers offer today. It’s a total game changer. Really, this new rest has too many features to explain in an interview. You would get mad at me for going way over the word limit. The Victor is the pinnacle addition to our nine other limb-driven arrow rests that also continue to outperform and stand the test of time.”
AB: Does owning a pro shop help your manufacturing business, and vice versa?
O’Loughlin: “Being primarily a manufacturer and also having a small pro shop really does help, because we have more understanding with our dealers. We know the hard work it takes to run a pro shop, and how much dealers rely on the equipment that they install for their customers. It makes us that much more dedicated to making bullet-proof products that last a lifetime. Not to mention, being able to deliver our goods in a quick manner to our dealers. This especially matters during the busy season. This is why we continue to perform as the fastest bowstring manufacturer in the world. If you find yourself waiting more than a week for a set of bowstrings, that’s when you are losing money as a dealer. We don’t do expensive buy-ins to guarantee dealers special turnaround treatment, either. That’s crazy to us, because every dealer is important and special, and deserves to receive their bowstrings in the quickest turnaround possible.”
AB: How many employees work for Vapor Trail Archery, and do you add seasonal staffing as needed?
O’Loughlin: “We run a pretty lean operation in the off-season and currently have around 20 employees. Come busy season, we have closer to 30-plus employees. We like to help out in the local community, so we like to hire high school kids around town looking for a good-paying job, so they can make some money in the summertime. It works out great for us, because then we don’t have to let anyone go in the offseason, and we get to keep our Vapor Trail veterans all year long.”
AB: What does the near future hold for Vapor Trail Archery and Stokerized Stabilizers?
O’Loughlin: “We are absolutely in love with the fact that we get to be part of the constant advancement of archery technology and share that with others. As long as we get to be a part of that, we’ll always be happy and know we are on the right path. We’ve already participated so much in the advancement with our VTX proprietary bowstring material and limb-driven rest technology, not to mention all the other patented products we have in our product offerings.
And the future is exciting indeed. Currently, we have a few unreleased products in our pipeline that are going to be absolute industry disruptors. We look forward to continuing to share these advancements with archers and bowhunters everywhere — giving them more features and options to improve and hone their craft. That’s our real obsession here at Vapor Trail — helping everyone be better.”
