Adventure Medical Kits
Littleton, New Hampshire, 1989 — first-aid kits laid out by injury rather than by item, built in the same house as SOL, Counter Assault and the consumer QuikClot line.
Chinook Medical Gear
Founded in Durango, Colorado in 1990, now in Tulsa — a licensed drug wholesaler that builds custom medical kits, majority-owned since 2015 by the employee who bought it.
Chinook Medical Gear has built medical kits for harsh environments since 1990, first from Durango, Colorado and now from Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2015 a longtime employee, Air Force veteran Ben Crowder of the Osage Nation, bought the company from its founder with two colleagues and later took majority ownership; SBA 8(a) certification followed in early 2019. The detail that separates it from every other kit brand on this roster is regulatory rather than editorial — Chinook states that it is a licensed drug wholesaler with a pharmacist on staff, and prescription items require a medical license on file before it will sell them to you.
- 1990The year Chinook dates itself to, founded in Durango, Colorado
- 2015Employee buyout — Ben Crowder (Osage Nation) and two colleagues bought the company from founder Carl Darnell
- Rx gatedChinook's own FAQ: a licensed drug wholesaler, with a Medical License Authorization Form required for prescription items
What we'd reach for
- Custom kits and modulesThe actual business — configurations built to a customer's specification for government, military, contractor, corporate and expedition use, rather than a fixed retail range.
- Prescription (Rx) itemsGated behind a Medical License Authorization Form, non-returnable, and sold only to buyers who warrant they are appropriately licensed. That gate is the point of the category.
- Harsh-environment kit configurationsCold, altitude, marine and remote-work variants. Contents and expiry dates differ per build and are documented per order, not per catalog page.
Most kit companies sell you a bag. Chinook Medical Gear will sell you a bag, and will also refuse to sell you part of what could go in it until you prove who you are. That refusal is the most informative thing about the company.
The regulated part
Chinook’s FAQ states it plainly: “Chinook is a Licensed Drug Wholesaler. We have a pharmacist on staff, However, we are not a Pharmacy and cannot dispense prescriptions to individuals.” Prescription items require a Medical License Authorization Form on file — once, on a first order, and again when a license expires — and buyers must warrant they are “appropriately licensed or registered and in compliance with any and all requirements of the Food and Drug Administration and State regulations for any products ordered.” Prescription items are excluded from returns and refunds.
That is not customer-service friction. It is a wholesaler operating inside the rules that govern prescription distribution, and it tells you which half of this catalog is aimed at a physician-directed program and which half anyone can buy. No other kit brand on this roster draws that line on its own storefront.
Where the company came from
Chinook’s about page says: “Since 1990, Chinook Medical Gear has specialized in outfitting government agencies, military units, contractors, corporations, adventure companies, and individuals with the latest medical gear.” Tribal Business News reports that Carl Darnell and a partner founded the business in Durango, Colorado in 1990. A business-registry listing gives a 1992 incorporation date; we could not reconcile that against a state filing, so it is noted rather than printed alongside the founding year as an equal fact.
The company is no longer in Colorado. Its current site gives 12505 E. 55th Street, Unit B, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74146. Neither the date nor the reason for the move is published.
The ownership story is the one worth knowing. Tribal Business News reports that in 2015, longtime employee and U.S. Air Force veteran Ben Crowder, a citizen of the Osage Nation, bought the company from Darnell together with two other employees, taking majority ownership shortly after, and that Chinook secured SBA 8(a) certification in early 2019. The company describes itself today as “a Veteran-Owned and Native American Veteran-Owned 8(a) Small Business.” Ownership percentages are not published.
What that certification does and does not mean
8(a), veteran-owned and Native-owned status are business certifications. They describe who owns a company and which federal contracting programs it can compete in. They say nothing about how a tourniquet performs, whether a dressing is sterile, or whether a kit meets a workplace standard. Confusing the two is the easiest mistake to make with a company like this, and it is worth stating before a reader makes it.
The medical devices, drugs and supplies inside a Chinook build carry their own FDA listings, labeling and expiry dates, exactly as they do inside a kit from Adventure Medical Kits or My Medic.
Where they fall down
Custom means unpublished. A configuration built to a customer’s specification does not have a public spec sheet. That is fine for a program manager with a contract and awkward for an individual comparing options.
No public component manufacturer list. Like every kit house, Chinook curates third-party supplies and does not publish who made each one.
The corporate record is thin in the middle. A move from Durango to Tulsa, a change of ownership, and no dated company timeline connecting them.
Business certifications get read as product certifications. Chinook does not encourage this, but the language sits close enough together on procurement pages that buyers do it anyway.
Where Chinook fits
Agencies, contractors and expedition operators. Anyone who needs a build to a specification and a supplier who understands prescription distribution.
Programs with medical direction. The Rx gate only makes sense when there is a licensed clinician behind the purchase.
Not for: a casual household kit. That is Adventure Medical Kits or My Medic, and the individual components that matter most are available directly from North American Rescue.
Why we rate them
They gate what should be gated. The license requirement is a company choosing compliance over conversion.
The ownership story is documented by someone other than them. A trade publication reporting the 2015 buyout is worth more than an About page.
They describe themselves as a solutions company, not a manufacturer. Which is what they are, and the accuracy is the point.
More in Field & pursuits
All brands →The nearest neighbors on the shelf — same categories first, same department after that.
My Medic
North Salt Lake, Utah — the direct-to-consumer kit brand whose legal identity changed hands in January 2026, and whose own pages tell you which components came from where.
North American Rescue
Greer, South Carolina, 1996 — the company behind the C-A-T tourniquet, and the loudest voice warning that counterfeit copies of it have reached responders and failed.
QuikClot
The kaolin hemostatic brand Teleflex bought with Z-Medica for $500 million in 2020 — and whose consumer-channel paperwork is the part nobody publishes.