While many shoe manufacturers long ago gave up on making shoes in the US, FastCompany tells about one entrepreneur who hasn’t followed that trend. John Stollenwerk, president, chief executive, and owner of Allen-Edmonds Shoe Corp., is among the last remaining shoe manufacturers in America. He employees about 700 people in his company, which located in Wisconsin (see Packers beat Carolina in opening MNF).
While many have held him up as a true patriot, Stollenwerk is just responding to his market. Customers have come to appreciate the quality that Allen-Edmonds produces and the service they can provide to their customers. Take as, an example, banking. Predictions that soon there might only be two or three mega-banks have proven wrong. The market has needs not being met by the mega-banks and entrepreneurs are responding with many new (and successful I might add) banks for us to choose from. It takes vision and commitment to that vision, but like those worms and shrimp that were discovered living off the gas vents in the bottom of the ocean, entrepreneurs can flourish in remarkably hostile environments.
“This unassuming leader isn’t refusing to go overseas because of some abstract principle. It’s all about the shoes, and he still believes that Allen-Edmonds can make them better — and serve customers faster — in the United States.”
What is most remarkable to me is the courage that Stollenwerk has shown in sticking to his vision for the company that he purchased in 1980. “‘John could take this all offshore tomorrow, and we could probably double — maybe even triple — our profits,’ says Mark Birmingham, Allen-Edmonds’s COO. ‘But he knows that’s probably shortsighted’….That philosophy — built around a willingness to sacrifice short-term gains for the long-term good of his organization — is what defines Stollenwerk’s quiet kind of courage.”
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