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Exhaust catalyst deactivation in small, handheld, 2-stroke engines is an issue that is faced quite frequently in efforts to improve or maintain catalyst performance but reduce cost. Fresh catalyst performance is rarely an issue, however, sustaining this performance for the specified useful life period of 50, 125, or 300 hours is where challenges start to arise. Our program goal was to develop and demonstrate a commercially viable catalyst which is capable of meeting regulatory and internal requirements with a deterioration factor (DF) near or below 1.0 over a 300 hour useful life period. A secondary objective was to utilize decreased quantities of platinum group metals (PGM) to reduce the cost relative to our reference catalyst. To achieve this, our focus was to reduce poisoning caused by exhaust byproducts and exhaust borne contaminants through a collaboration of catalyst advances and exhaust system design.