Stepping into the future

0 Comments | La Crosse Tribune, Jun 15, 1998

LaCrosse Footwear's new product research and development facility will help Jerry Hess and his co-workers do their job.

And it symbolizes the company's stepped-up research and development efforts, which also will include computer-aided product design in the next 30 to 60 days.

"It's representative of our commitment to increase the design and development efforts of LaCrosse Footwear as a corporation," Patrick Gantert, president and chief executive officer, said of the new 5,100-square-foot facility.

The center was completed in late April at a cost of about $600,000, to allow LaCrosse Footwear to centralize its product research and development. It has a brick exterior and is in the LaCrosse Footwear complex on the 1300 block of St. Andrew Street.

Gantert said the new center provides an environment that is both creative and practical.

"It's a wonderful facility," said Hess, who is one of four product development managers. Like the other three, he has his own office and his own workroom, where existing products and prototypes line the walls. Hess previously did everything in his office in the company's sales and marketing offices.

"Having the workroom gives you a place to have all your products and materials at your fingertips," said Hess, who is responsible for leather footwear research and development. "And it gives us an area to work with not only suppliers, but also with sales and marketing people."

The new center's conference room is a good meeting place and has displays of all LaCrosse Footwear products, Hess said.

"It's a place where we can bring in our customers, get their feedback as to which way they think the markets are going and give them feedback as to where we're going, and make sure we have a match," Rob Rinehart, vice president of product development, said of the conference room.

"It's also provided a very productive area to conduct business such as board meetings, planning meetings and important outside presentations," Rinehart said of the conference room. "We just last week had some people in from Holland that we have a business venture with."

Product research and development has been a higher priority in the past two years, Rinehart said. And at a strategic planning session with senior managers last September, "Product development was identified as the main function that was going to drive the company in the near future," Rinehart said.

Increased competition requires these increased efforts.

"Up until maybe four or five years ago, we had essentially two principal competitors in our business," Rinehart said. "When the tennis shoe craze ended and people started buying hiking and outdoor styles to replace their tennis shoes, more competitors started offering products that were similar in the intended end-usage to what we make."

Three years ago, LaCrosse Footwear had two employees specifically devoted to research and product development. "Now we have six with probably three more to be added in the next six months," Rinehart said. All nine will work at the new facility, and focus on developing new products as well as improving existing ones.

Computer hardware and software is being installed in the new facility to allow the company to start computer-aided product design. The equipment will cost about $150,000 and will be fully operational in 30 to 60 days.

"It will allow us to be more efficient in our development efforts and to be able to bring products to market quicker than before," Rinehart said of the computer system, which will allow staffers to see on a video screen how different designs and materials would work.

"We really think it was significant that LaCrosse Footwear took this position," Jim Naleid, senior investment officer with Lokken, Chesnut & Cape Inc. in La Crosse, said of the new facility.

"One thing we've come to appreciate as we've analyzed shoe companies is that unless they have research and development that leads them to be in the forefront of their competitors, they'll have a very difficult time competing," Naleid said.

"The wild card is always when and how you will recoup your investment on the research and development that you engage in," Naleid said. Gantert declined to say how much the company spends annually on product research and development.

"It also suggests something psychologically to investors," Naleid said of the company's stepped-up research and development efforts.