Some of my smarter friends thought it would be a good idea to write a little about myself so that customers can know who they are dealing with when they purchase from Caribou Cases Europe.  That’s not an unreasonable ask as I know our products are certainly not an inexpensive purchase decision.  Above all, you want to know that the people designing and building the luggage that will be mounted to your motorcycle know what they are doing. Anyway, hopefully this little piece goes some way to explaining why you should feel comfortable working with Caribou. We are very much like you.

Let’s work our ways backwards: In the summer of 2023, I left Pelican Products (the US parent company of Peli Products) in Torrance, California after a 27-year career heading up their product design team.  I had a great career at Pelican: I joined when it was still quite small and run by founder David Parker. Over the years the company grew to be the market leader in equipment protector cases and developed an international presence. I am grateful to have been on the bus.

Obviously, working at Pelican I was intimately involved in the design of equipment protector cases.  Pelican’s founder created a culture that was very much anchored to the idea quality.  Quality can be a loose term and used in different ways but within Pelican it meant toughness and durability.  There was no possibility that the team was going to let any product leave the factory that did not meet our customers’ expectations.  And we most certainly had customers with high expectations – elite military special forces, extreme nature photographers, emergency service personnel – people that went into places where others feared to tread.  And strangely enough, movie villains always used Pelican cases.  Not sure why.

Over the years the team and I literally designed, tested and brought to life countless numbers of cases and other products.  I was privileged to meet and speak with thousands of customers about the products.  One of the customers was Roger Pioszak, the original founder of Caribou Cases USA, based out of Colorado.  Roger and I connected over our love of motorcycles.  We are both practical old school mechanical engineers who know their way around a machine shop and a motorcycle.

So where did my passion for motorcycles come from – my dad Ken Deighton.  From literally as long as I can remember there were motorcycles in our lives.  Dad raced and restored vintage motorcycles and rode them all over the UK where I was born.  I started out sat on the fuel tank, moved to the pillion seat and eventually graduated to my own motorcycles.  My brother also rode, and it truly was a family pastime. 

When I left school, I went through a 4-year mechanical engineering apprenticeship at Bootham Engineers, York as a Fitter / Machinist and though the wages were low, it did allow me to buy my first little learner bikes then graduate to two stroke Kawasaki triples and Yamaha RDs.

After university I moved to California and there I raised a family and enjoyed life in the sun.  I was privileged to ride the beautiful mountains of southern California and had a lot of fun riding dirt bikes in the deserts with my children and their friends.