Alumni Business Spotlight: Ongyel Sherpa, Founder & CEO of US Sherpa

Ongyel Sherpa ’04 grew up in Nepal’s capital of Kathmandu, where his family owns a trekking and mountaineering business. Today, the Champlain College Business Administration alum is the founder and CEO of US Sherpa, an authentic Sherpa brand selling handcrafted natural fiber products and organizing guided services in Nepal for trekkers, mountaineers, and cultural tourists.

We sat down with Ongyel Sherpa to learn about his story from Nepal to Vermont: seizing unexpected opportunities, finding community in new places, and building something meaningful that gives back. From arriving in Vermont to launching his business website from the campus library, his journey exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit and global perspective that the college fosters in its students.

Q: Tell me about your journey from Nepal to Vermont. How did you end up halfway around the globe?

I am originally from Nepal. I came to Vermont in 1998. I was dreaming of going to America, and I got this amazing opportunity when I met a doctor and climber who had climbed Mount Everest with one of my uncles. He was living in Vermont at the time and ended up sponsoring me to come to Vermont. Everything happened spontaneously—almost like it was sparked in the moment.

Q: What is US Sherpa?

US Sherpa is an authentic Sherpa brand that produces natural fiber products handcrafted in Nepal for active, caring, and outdoor lifestyles. Aside from creating products and distributing them here in the US, we offer trips to Nepal and partner with all sorts of groups here in Vermont and beyond.

Q: What prompted you to start US Sherpa?

Coming from a third-world country with so little, I was always fascinated with the amount of opportunities here in America. I was also very aware of the currency difference. You know, for $3 you get a coffee here. In Nepal, $3 can buy lunch or dinner. I thought: if I could bring products from Nepal, I could make some money. As I started talking with people here about these artisan products, I realized there was a real interest and market here.

On the trekking side, there is a huge market in America for people wanting to climb big mountains and go trekking. So, you know, I already had this family connection in this outdoor industry, and that’s their bread and butter. That’s how my dad made his living. Having been introduced to the doctor’s friends and the community he had built along with all these other outdoor communities, it felt like a perfect recipe.

At first, I was not even thinking about it in a business sense, but it was like, okay, I have a Sherpa family in Nepal who can help put this great trip together. That’s always been a huge part of who I am, from growing up in Nepal and working around the mountaineering hospitality tourism industry.

Q: Tell us about the artisan groups you work with in Nepal.

We work with several groups. Our largest group of about 300 people makes our wool products—hats, headbands, and socks. We also have another group who makes our yak wool scarves and blankets, a group that makes bags, and the Disabled Service Center that creates beautiful wool-felted products. This year, we started working with a women’s co-op group that I had been trying to work with for over two years, and it’s worked out really well.

Q: How have these partnerships evolved over the years?

Products getting made in Nepal is a really, really big part of who we are. I have been working with most of the groups, like the wool group, for over ten years. It’s been super rewarding to see how they have grown. I used to be the ninth or tenth customer for our wool group—they had bigger clients importing to Canada and other places, and I was just this small guy—but about four or five years ago, we became their number one customer.

Three years ago, when my wife and I visited Nepal, we went to their factory and jokingly asked, “If I go to the town where all these knitters live and randomly ask someone, ‘Do you know US Sherpa?’ will they say ‘Yes’? And he was like, ‘Yeah, they’ll know.’ They’ve grown so much that they bought their own facility a few years ago instead of renting. 

Q: What drew you to Champlain?

When I came here at 18, I started living with the doctor’s family in Burlington on Summit Street. I helped the family with their children, walked their dogs, and would see the colleges as I walked by. The family was incredibly generous and said, “We’ll help you go to school.” So I went to high school for two years, and then college seemed like the natural next step. I have always been very interested in travel and tourism—that was something I did in Nepal, where the hospitality industry is very prominent, and Champlain was offering this program at the time. Plus, it was located within walking distance of where I was living.

Q: What role did Champlain College play in making US Sherpa a reality?

I completed my associate’s degree in travel and tourism at Champlain, and after that, I took a year off. I didn’t know what I wanted, whether to continue in travel and tourism or business. After talking with my Champlain College advisor and explaining what I see myself doing down the road, we determined the business program would be a great fit.

I applied a lot of things I learned in college to my business. For class, I created a business, pretty much like US Sherpa, wrote a business plan, created a brochure, and interviewed companies downtown. I remember building a website for a class project, and actually launching ussherpa.com in the Champlain College library.

The professors played a huge role in supporting me. In my third or fourth year, I started talking with retailers. When I got my first wholesale order from the Peace & Justice Center in Burlington and then from Outdoor Gear Exchange, that gave me the boost to believe I could really do this.

Q: What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs?

First, I’d say that feeling like that sense of urgency in the entrepreneurial area is very important. You need to have that sense like, “We need to do this now.” When you are wearing so many hats, being able to see and prioritize is important. We are generally a team of three, but I hire outside contractors to help us in specific areas. I rely on somebody who has experience, who can spend more time on recruiting sales folks, sales group, you know, same thing with Amazon.

Also, don’t have all your eggs in one basket. The business model should work in a few different ways. You can’t just rely on, say, wholesale. You constantly have to think about building other revenue streams, like the retail side and building an online shop. In our case, we do wholesale, we have our own website, we partner with local marketplaces like Myti, we’re on Etsy, and we recently launched on Amazon.

Q: You’ve continued to stay engaged with Champlain. Can you tell me a little about that?

We work with Champlain College students through internships and attend some events. For example, we’ve been participating in the Alumni Marketplace for a couple of years. It’s been super nice to go back and share that with my kids, you know, “this is where your mom and I met.” It’s a nice full-circle moment.