Doug Hutchens went to work for Gerber Legendary Blades in 1968 shortly after he graduated from high school. He went to school nights at Portland State University and worked the day shift at Gerber in the Leather Department. In those years Gerber built all of their own high quality leather sheaths in house. Doug took electrical engineering courses at night and learned to work leather from an old "Saddle Maker" who had once been in the US Horse cavalry.

     In April of 1969 Doug joined the Army to serve his country as his father had in WWII. In May of 1972 having served his hitch he returned to Gerber and continued his education with night school. The job at Gerber began as a way to pay for his education but soon became a labor of love. Doug became the supervisor of the Leather Department and then moved on to supervise many of the departments throughout the plant. In the late 1970's Pete Gerber asked him to establish a "Special Knife" department where ultra-custom knives could be built. Doug recruited workers from many departments at Gerber to form this new elite team to build most of the legendary Gerber specialty products. Jade & agate inlayed folding knives, special survival knives, engraved stag & wood handled MKI & II knives and many more were built by this team. The products that were produced by this department are highly sought after today as they are the most collectable of any Gerber production knives.

     During this highly creative time at Gerber Doug worked with cutlery legends such as Pete Gerber, Pete Kershaw, Al Mar, Blackie Collins, Paul Poehlmann and Bob Loveless. Soon Doug was promoted to Engineering Manager and headed up the team that would develop many of the top products for Gerber in the next twenty years. In 1992 Doug became Marketing Manager for Gerber with the Product Managers reporting to him so he could continue to guide product development along with Gerber's marketing efforts. Doug was one of the inventors of the Multi-Plier tool and was involved with the development of almost every knife designed by the Gerber engineering team.

     During his years as Marketing Manager Gerber captured market share from its competitors and grew tremendously.

     In January of 2002 after 34 years at Gerber Legendary Blades Doug left to join Lone Wolf Knives as Marketing Manager. Doug is excited to be working on high quality semi-custom knives again. His experience with marketing and product development complements the Lone Wolf Team nicely.