Penn-Trafford alumnus Hunter Klobucar turned his longtime passion for the outdoors into an environmental cleanup company called Fish Gods. The corporation focuses on helping anglers and outdoor enthusiasts remove plastic pollution from Earth’s freshwater fisheries, unlike many other cleanup companies who are centered on salt water.
After graduating from P-T in 2017, Klobucar met his business partner, Tyler Waltenbaugh, at Edinboro University. The two shared a love for the outdoors and took a three-week brook trout research trip across Pa.
“We saw plastic and garbage polluting the waterways everywhere we went, and realized we did not have anything to use to pick it up,” Klobucar said. “That is where the idea for the company started.”
Klobucar and Waltenbaugh coined the company name “Fish Gods” from the common phrase that anglers use when hoping for a successful fishing trip.
“It was the perfect fit,” Klobucar said. “If you take care of the Earth, the Fish Gods will bless you with a good catch.”
Though becoming an entrepreneur was not part of their college plans, Klobucar and Waltenbaugh have found great success with the company’s first product, the Clean Earth Bag, which has been sold to 17 different countries so far. The bag is a collapsible, reusable, and durable trash collector that can attach to any equipment and clothing.
“We wanted to create something that eliminates the use of plastic bags as trash collectors when fishing,” Klobucar said.
In April of 2019, the college students entered their idea into the Ben Franklin Tech-Celerator program, and won first place against five other competitors, winning $5,000 to launch their company. Klobucar and Waltenbaugh worked with programs through Penn-State Behrend and companies like Cardboard Helicopter Product Design and RSP Manufacturing to turn their prototype into a product. They also raised over $20,000 in their Kickstarter campaign.
Klobucar and Waltenbaugh want to continue to produce products made out of recycled plastic.
“We have many ideas for fishing nets and even a redesigned Clean Earth Bag made from post consumer materials,” Klobucar said. They hope to unite outdoor enthusiasts and encourage them to keep Earths’ waterways clean.
“If every outdoor enthusiast in the US picked up one bag per year, we could clean up 292 million pounds of trash,” according to their website www.fishgods.co.
In addition to his company, Klobucar has a podcast on Spotify called “The Outdoors Greatest.” His episodes are featured on the Edinboro campus media page, and will be released biweekly starting in February.
Klobucar encourages P-T students to take action and pursue dreams of their own.
“Use your free time now to set yourself up for success,” he said. “Do not be afraid to seek out resources and help, there are so many people willing to support your journey.”
Carleigh Bruno, Staff Writer