There have many situations in my life that could have turned out differently. If I had been more open to change and opportunity, been more aggressive in pursuit of career potential, my career path may well have gone a totally different direction. Here are just three of many “encounters with greatness” I skipped right by.
Jake Burton
In 1978 I was working in a tiny vendor booth in the convention center of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. I shared the cost of the booth with another young man named Jake. I was selling custom made orthotics for ski boots hoping to garner an exclusive distribution agreement with a French company named Sidas. I had a little mold maker that heated the footbeds and formed them into a support system that was inserted into the boot. I had tremendous success with the inserts that help overcome one of the most common problems for skiers, foot cramps. Orthotics give the foot such vital support that the muscles are less inclined to cramp.
My neighbor Jake, was selling a laminated board that looked like an oversized skateboard with no wheels. The user attached their snow boot using a flimsy toe cup, and standing sideways “surfed” down the mountain. He had a little briefcase that opened into a small video player and screen.
His sales pitch was showing a video of himself flying down a slope in Sun Valley Idaho, at breakneck speed and it was attracting dozens of curious passerby. About every fifth person standing in front of the video projector stepped up and bought a “Snowboard”.
I was getting nothing!
Here’s The Rub: Jake Burton was an obsessive-compulsive inventor who, in my mind, was also a daredevil. Who in their right mind would buy one of those suicide devices? Boy did I miss calculate that opportunity.
I could easily have hooked up with his new business, instead I dismissed it as crazy.
Currently Burton is being sold in over 4,000 specialty ski shops all over the world. It is an iconic adventure sports brand supplying dozens of related products, such as boots, gloves, sunglasses and goggles, snow boarding pants and jackets, among other branded stuff. It is estimated that Burton Brands account for nearly 40% of the $256M snowboarding market worldwide.
Robert Herzog
The front door of Ski-Surf Shop was a few feet from the curb of on a busy boulevard leading to the beach a few miles away. During the summer the business was slow, as the owner had long ago decided snow skiing was his future, so he no longer shaped or even stocked surf boards. We did however, a reasonable business in sunglasses, swimwear, sunscreen and other beach accessories.
During the summer weeks I was often the only employee in the store . One day in summer of 1982, a funky 50’s era wood-sided pickup truck pulled up to the curb, and a tall, skinny, ponytailed hippie jumped out. He bounced into the store and asked if he could see the manager.
I said he was sailing around the world in his yacht (being viciously facetious).
What was he selling? He handed me a small round package of cellophane. It had a cool looking logo label and the name on it said “Sex Wax”.
I looked a little dumbfounded, but I asked, “What is this?”
“It’s surfboard wax. It will give the board a sticky feel so you can maneuver better. It stays on and doesn’t stick to your feet. I suggest you put a box of these right here on the counter, next to the cash register. I guarantee it will sell. They cost you one buck and you sell ‘em for two bucks. I will leave a box on consignment, OK? I will be back next week. Tell your boss because he is going to want to order several boxes next week.”
If you don’t surf, you may not be familiar with the phenomenon of Sex Wax:
Starting in 1982, two graduates of the University of California at Santa Barbara created and cornered a market with a uniquely packaged paraffin wax formula. The brainchild of an Orange County born surfer named Robert Herzog, Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax is now sold worldwide and Mr. Zog and his biochemist partner Nate Skinner, feathered a nice little retirement nest that continues to this day.
I was in no way instrumental in Mr. Zog’s success, other than I didn’t throw him and his little package out that day. But it is just another example of being very near the spark that turned into a bonfire. I am amazed at how some people have the ability to see the potential for something as ‘inconsequential’ as a tuna can sized product becoming a staple in a worldwide sport, and hold on to it’s market dominance for decades.
Ely Callaway
Early in our marriage, while Cathy was still working in an oral surgeons office, one of the doctors that had an office down the hall, won $3M in the lottery. With his winnings he bought a winery in the Temecula area, just 40 minutes from our home. One Saturday we drove up to check it out. We ended up visiting several wineries in the booming new Temecula Wine Valley.
The most impressive was Callaway Winery and Vineyards.
We learned how Ely Callaway was originally from New York, and after a successful career in the textile industry where he oversaw the development and popularization of polyester blended fabric, he retired to start a winery. Established in 1973, his first success came when he managed to serve his Riesling was served to Queen Elizabeth II at a luncheon in New York. It was reported that she asked for a second glass and a meeting with the vintner.
Soon restaurants all over the country were serving Callaway wines and his success fed the demand for other Temecula area wines.
In 1982 I was working for McConnell Cabinets and was supervising the installation of a condominium project in Murrieta, just a few miles from Callaway Winery. In the late afternoon, I would sneak out on the brand new Nicklaus designed Bear Creek Country Club putting green. It was just in its infancy, and had very few members, so I introduced myself to the pro. I told him I was the cabinet supplier’s rep for the new Tennis Club Condos under construction. We talked. I asked for permission to occasionally putz around on the putting green. It was granted.
As I was touring the pro shop I commented on a curious set of pitching wedges he displayed.
He told me they were the creation of a couple of local golfers and new members of the mens club. They were packaged in a black felt-lined oak box. He explained they were steel shafted forged wedges in three different lofts. The shafts were veneered with a thin oak laminate.
Ironically, he said, those same guys were about to hold a meeting out on the putting green with the owner of Callaway Winery, just up the road. He warned me to keep my distance because they would be chipping and putting.
I quietly listened in as five men tested and admired the set of expensive, collector clubs. I putted around and thought nothing of it except that I wondered, why would anyone want or need pitching wedges with fake wooden shafts?
Here’s The Rub: Those five men on the putting green were discussing the sale of the little specialty wedge company named Hickory Sticks USA. Two of those men were Eli Callaway and his son, who went on to buy the Hickory Sticks company and turn it into Callaway Golf.
I can honestly say I was in the ‘infirmary’ when Callaway Golf, one of the worlds most iconic golf club manufacturing companies, was born.
A few years later I confirmed this event when, as an advertising sales rep and columnist for a regional golf magazine called Golf Southern California, I had the privilege to interview Dick de La Cruz, who was one of those present that day. Mr. de La Cruz went on to become a Chief Engineer and VP at Callaway. As I interviewed him for an ongoing column I wrote for the magazine called “The Driving Forces In Golf”, he said I got most of it right, that he and his two partners, who had developed the wedge line, were pitching the sale to Ely and his son.
Obviously Hickory Sticks didn’t make Callaway what it was to become, but it’s acquisition did pave the path for the father and son to go on to innovate dozens of new products that went on to bring millions of new participants into the game of golf.