Riverton mayor proclaims Sept. 18, 2025, as Brunton International Day

(Riverton, WY) – Riverton Mayor Tim Hancock declared Sept. 18, 2025, as Brunton International Day in Riverton this week, recognizing the 2025 Small Business Person of the Year award that company owner Lauren Heerschap recently received from the Wyoming Small Business Development Center.

“(That) is incredible statewide recognition for one of our local business owners who has made sure that Brunton is here in Riverton and has brought a lot of good, I think, to Riverton,” Hancock said during a Riverton City Council meeting Tuesday. “We’re glad you’re here, and we’re glad that you were able to get this recognition. It’s very deserved.”

Brunton International manufactures transits, compasses, and sighting instruments in Riverton, where the business has been headquartered since 1972, according to this week’s proclamation.

The company also celebrated its 130th anniversary last year – three years into Lauren and David Heerschap’s tenure as Brunton’s owners, the proclamation states.

“We’re very proud to be the current caretakers of one of the oldest brands in the outdoor rec industry and the geology industry and even the military, from a contracting standpoint,” Lauren Heerschap told the council during Tuesday’s meeting.

This week’s proclamation says the U.S. Army ordered its first batch of adapted pocket transits – known as the M2 Transit – from Brunton in 1929, and Brunton compasses have been “a staple of members of the United States Military for almost 100 years.”

Sept. 18

David W. Brunton, a Canadian-born geologist, developed the Brunton Pocket Transit – a compact, multi-purpose instrument that included a compass, inclinometer and level – in 1894, according to this week’s proclamation. 

Specifically, Lauren Heerschap said, the pocket transit was granted its “very first patent” on Sept. 18, 1894.

“So we hope to turn Sept. 18 into an annual … International Brunton Day,” she said. “Because it is (a) significant thing for us and for all of the Brunton users out there in the world.”

She presented the city council with a framed photo of the original pocket transit patent this week along with a Gold Standard Transit bearing the company’s 130th anniversary tag, suggesting that both could be displayed at Riverton City Hall to mark Brunton International Day.

“We’re just very thankful,” she said. “This is quite an honor.”

She also invited the council and “anyone here in the audience” to contact Brunton to arrange a Sept. 18 tour of the company facility – which was constructed by Riverton’s economic development entity IDEA Inc.

“Brunton owes pretty much its existence to the community of Riverton for keeping it here and keeping it alive,” she said. “We can’t take credit for all of that. It’s really been a community effort, and hopefully we can continue that.”