Nestled on a hill above Orofino, Idaho, overlooking the Clearwater River, is a modest campus that’s home to a state-of-the-art machine shop and an optics lab filled with engineers. The optical components used at this shop aren’t meant to be snapped into eyeglass frames, however. They’re a powerful and vital component of Nightforce rifle scopes.
“We’ve been around for almost 27 years,” said Operations Manager Jesse Daniels. “The product was originally designed for hunting, but our owner has a passion for the military, and we started selling to tier one military groups in the 1990’s.”
The Nightforce dedication to the military has not only made their product popular among an intelligence alliance comprised of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States, but they also recently landed a prestigious military contract in which one of their scopes will be integrated as the squad variable power scope (SVPS) component of weapons deployed by the U.S. Special Operations Command.
“SVPS is definitely a milestone,” said Jesse. “When you land these big military contracts, you have a lot of people looking up to you because they look up to the military as well. A big win like this is great for our military business and it’s also a great influence for the commercial market.”
For a company based in a town like Orofino, calling this contract a big win is an understatement.
“It means a lot to us because our culture here revolves around our products. There is a lot of pride in what we do,” said Klaus Johnson, head of engineering at Nightforce.
Jesse and Klaus agree that the Nightforce staff is particularly adept at crafting rifle scopes because most are shooters.
“We’re building these scopes for military and long-range shooters, but we’re also building them for ourselves,” said Jesse. “We get to go out our backdoor in Idaho and test them ourselves.”
Although their scopes are used to win competitions for precision shooting and help defend freedom around the globe, Nightforce’s biggest asset is the passion their people have.
“Klaus and I have worked at other companies and you get a different feel here,” Jesse said. “Our top dealers visit, and they’re blown away by our story and the level of expertise in every area of our business. Our quality and our passion got Nightforce to where it is and will get us to our goals in the future.”
Visit Nightforce at http://nightforceoptics.com/