Our Story
What started as a solution for the growing gap between electric vehicles and outdoor recreation has evolved into something much bigger: A modular platform for clean, off-grid infrastructure.
Building the Future of Infrastructure Beyond the Grid
Electric Outdoors was founded in 2023 by Josef Hjelmaker. While serving as Chief Innovation Officer at THOR Industries, the world’s largest RV manufacturer, Josef identified a growing challenge. The infrastructure supporting outdoor recreation wasn’t keeping up with the world around it.
Electric vehicles are rapidly transforming transportation, yet less than 20% of EV chargers are located in remote areas, leaving many outdoor destinations inaccessible to EV drivers. At the same time, building traditional campground infrastructure is slow, expensive, and involves complicated permitting processes.
The question became clear: How can we make accessing the outdoors more sustainable and more accessible?
Our answer to that question is the EO Canopy, a first-of-its-kind off-grid destination platform that combines solar energy, battery storage, atmospheric water generation, EV charging, internet connectivity, and intelligent controls into a modular system that can be deployed almost anywhere.
Instead of building permanent infrastructure from scratch, landowners and operators can deploy a flexible system that works with the landscape without damaging it.
“Electric Outdoors exists to enable sustainable, off-grid infrastructure anywhere it’s needed, without damaging the places it serves.”
Josef Hjelmaker, CEO & Founder
A Platform with Bigger Possibilities
As we began introducing the EO Canopy to the market, something interesting started happening.
People from outside the camping world started reaching out with ideas.
Some envisioned electric boat charging docks.
Others saw beachside cabanas or remote event infrastructure.
Some imagined off-grid stages for music festivals.
Public agencies began exploring the technology for parks, community infrastructure, and remote public lands.
And in conversations with local governments and emergency planners, another possibility emerged: disaster response and resilient infrastructure that could be deployed quickly when traditional systems fail.
It became clear that we had built more than a glamping platform.
We built a modular infrastructure system that could serve many different environments and communities.
Leadership Team
Josef Hjelmaker
CEO and Founder
Josef is a seasoned business leader and engineering executive with 25 years of experience launching and innovating automotive, software, consumer electronics, and recreational vehicle products and systems. As the former Chief Innovation Officer at THOR Industries, Josef has unparalleled experience in disrupting the outdoor recreational market.
JR Noguiera
Chief Financial Officer
JR is a strategy, innovation, and finance professional with a management consulting background, experienced in leading growth strategy, innovation, operations improvement, and business development programs through the RV and outdoor industry, consumer goods, and industrial components.
Sanna Boman
Chief Marketing Officer
Sanna is a marketing executive and strategic storyteller with over 15 years of experience driving growth across the RV, camping, and outdoor recreation industries. As a results-oriented leader, she has built and scaled high-performing content marketing teams, leading brand, digital, and comms strategy for both digital platforms and print publications.
Christian Stoehr
Chief Product and Innovation Officer
Chris is a 14-time Emmy Award–winning executive with 20+ years leading product innovation and transformation. He unifies EO’s hardware, software, energy, and data into an intelligent platform, owning the product roadmap, AI telemetry architecture, and digital twin strategy for off-grid customers.
Scott Thayer
Chief Digital Officer
Scott is an innovative technical leader, researcher, and product developer with a 25-year career in robotics and computer vision. He is the owner of 10 patents and creator/subject of over 100 publications and invited presentations in artificial intelligence, computer vision, autonomous robotics, wireless sensors and communications, and 3-D imaging and shape analysis.
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Contact UsPartners and Advisors
Building strong partnerships has been key to Electric Outdoors’ success to date, allowing us to scale sustainably while accelerating innovation and building credibility in a competitive market. We’re grateful to the following individuals and companies for sharing their time, expertise, resources, and networks with EO.
Our Partners
