Local company makes environmentally-safe rock wall holdsBrandon AugsburgDaily Egyptian
The rugged, rocky terrain of southern Illinois has become a new hot spot for rock-climbing, and David and Daniel Chancellor are leading the way.
The brothers from De Soto are co-founders of So iLL Inc., a company that makes rock wall holds which are the hand and footholds for indoor climbing walls including the one at SIUC's Recreation Center.
Last year, the brothers introduced a unique rock wall hold into the market. Their latest product is made from an environmentally safe, non-toxic and unbreakable polyurethane mixture. The holds contain no mercury and have lead-free pigments.
The company also boasts a clothing line designed for the outdoors and sells other climbing accessories. Running the family-owned business keeps the brothers busy.
"We do everything," Daniel Chancellor said. "All the manufacturing, all the office work, all the advertising."
The brothers began making their own holds in 1999 after deciding they could make better ones than they could buy in stores. Over the next three years, the brothers created and recreated their holds. They tested them at their home wall and at local gyms.
The brothers received positive feedback from local climbers and in 2002 production on their first line of holds began. The original production took place in buckets in their parents' basement.
After starting small, the Chancellor brothers now manufacture about 300 different climbing holds that can be purchased on their Web site. The holds come in a variety of colors with many different designs. The company has also gone international with distributors in Japan and Scandinavia.
Despite all the hard work that goes into running their own multinational corporation, the brothers' still know how to have fun. They host rock-climbing competitions a few times a year with live bands at their on-site training facility in De Soto, Daniel Chancellor said.
With the Chancellor brothers' holds on the wall, the climbing wall in the recreation center, which has been in place for about 18 years, has become a popular attraction said Bill McMinn, the director of facilities at the recreation center.
Corne Prozesky, assistant director of facilities at the Recreation Center, said the indoor wall is a good backup plan for many climbers when the weather outside turns bad. Prozesky also said he changes the configuration of the holds on the wall regularly to allow climbers to be continually challenged.
Climbing inside is not the only option for climbers in southern Illinois, however. The Shawnee National Forest offers untouched and challenging terrain for climbers.
"We've been to Colorado and out west, and the climbing here in the Shawnee is better, in our opinion, than anywhere in the U.S.," Daniel Chancellor said.
There is a rock-climbing club made up of SIU students who use the wall regularly, though they prefer to be outside, said Brian Stephens, a member and former president of the club. The club has about 25 members, 12 of whom are very active, Stephens said. The group uses the wall twice a week to practice climbing.
McMinn said that students coming from bigger cities have rock-climbing walls in their hometowns, and they expect the same facilities at school.
"It's a national phenomenon," McMinn said. "It's popular everywhere."
