About Velocity Sports Equipment

The roots of the Infinity go way back to around 1974 when a Pacific Northwest jumper by the name of Tom Classen started building the "Classen Rig". In 1979 Linda Fourney and Earl Bartel formed Paraphernalia and marketed Tom's rig as the "Northern Lite". In 1984, Dan Tarasievich took over at Paraphernalia and introduced the "Northern Lite II" in 1985. In 1987, The "Northern Lite III" was introduced with a narrower reserve pin spacing, and the iconic center flap configuration.

Around 1990, Larry Chernis bought the manufacturing rights for the Northern Lite III and opened Northern Lite Enterprises and went into business manufacturing the Northern Lite III that Paraphernalia was producing previously. In 1993 Larry changed the 2-pin reserve container to a 1-pin container and introduced the "Northern Lite III Infinity", later shortened to "Infinity".

Northern Lite Enterprises was reorganized in 1998 into "Velocity Sports Equipment" and the Infinity underwent a complete face lift under the direction of Kelly Farrington. VSE started at Skydive Kapowsin and shortly after, moved to Puyallup, Washington. VSE relocated to Bend, Oregon in 2006 and opened their new factory on Enterprise Drive in 2012.