Bob Foht, President of the GearGrid Corporation, talks to International Fire Buyer about how his company has had to evolve to adapt to changing markets
The GearGrid Corporation is a Minnesota-based manufacturer of turnout gear storage solutions. Bob Foht was appointed company President earlier this year, and has outlined his visions for the company’s future expansion plans.
Could you give us a quick overview of the company and what it stands for?
GearGrid is a 95-year-old company, so by fire standards we’re pretty seasoned. The company started off as a custom manufacturer of retail displays – a market that’s entirely different to fire and more project than product-based.
About 15 years ago one of the company owners, Mike Bowyer, who was a fire-fighter at the time, came up with the concept of a heavy-duty open ventilated storage system for their PPE for a new fire station that they were building. When it came to storage they had historically used wood boxes to store their gear in – they were inherently bad for drying; they didn’t do much by way of promoting the life of the gear. So this gave rise to the product you now see on the show floors – the GearGrid storage system for PPE.
So the market was right, the product was right and the stars lined up to completely change our business model. Today we manufacture items out of steel tube and wire, we powder cape and coat, and all the facets of manufacturing are done in our plant in Forest Lake, near Minneapolis-Saint Paul in Minnesota. Over the last 15 years, the scope of the product has expanded to include storage for hose and cylinders and work stations and hose drying racks. So we’ve really evolved into a storage company and that’s what our niche is.
About five years ago we anticipated a downturn in the economy and we felt that expanding globally would be a good way to offset that – plus it has always been there in our plans. We expanded in the UK first, with a very solid partner we still have today, PI Distribution, located in Sandbach in Dorset.
From there we expanded into the European market, which coincided with Interschutz. We began selling to most German -peaking countries and still do today. In the last couple years we’ve expanded into the Middle East – countries like Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. Now our efforts will be the Asian Pacific markets – Australia, Singapore and so on.
In mid-July I became company President. Prior to that, I oversaw all of GearGrid’s sales and marketing. Today we’re a company of approximately 50 employees. We know that gear looks different in a lot of countries than it does here in the US. The kit that UK fire-fighters wear is a little bit different and in Germany it’s different too. But as you talk to fire-fighters you will hear that though the gear does potentially look different in different countries, the need to dry is universal. So that’s our focus as we move forward throughout and outside of the US.
You mentioned that you saw the US market down-turning so you chose to spread internationally. Do you still find the US market challenging?
I’ve been asked that question a lot. We are intrinsically linked with the construction of new fire stations. Two or three years ago, that segment of the industry was hurt badly. Construction of new fire stations was precipitously down and the people that design and eventually build fire stations felt this probably more so than anyone.
We’re very well connected with architects in the US and abroad and the good news is that today things seem to be on the way up. I think we’re in a very good space right now – we’ve seen the worst and funding is becoming a little bit more available. The demand for new stations doesn’t go away. It’s still there, in fact, once the funding becomes available again, it’s there more than ever.
Would you say the Middle East is your biggest market in terms of growth, or has the rest of Asia got the potential to be bigger for you?
There’s no doubt we’ve had great success in the Middle East. In Qatar, we completed a very sizeable project last year, at a facility called Ras Laffan: An enormous industrial site to the north of Doha. In my opinion it’s the most progressive and perhaps the largest training centre in the world – it’s just stunning.
I think within Saudi Arabia we have seen really some great progression with Saudi Aramco and now with civil defence, where we’re seeing our product tendered in a number of different areas. They favour American manufacturers in Saudi Arabia, so it’s a great place for us and I think the Middle East market will continue to be strong.
We’re just getting our feet wet in the Asia Pacific market, so I don’t have a great handle on what that is going to look like. Our focus right now is certainly in Australia. Things have softened a bit in Australia, particularly in oil and gas. There are some budgetary challenges at the moment, with South Australia Fire Services for example looking at as much as 10% decreases in budget.
Where would you like to be in five years’ time in terms of growth of GearGrid as a company?
With the strides that we have made internationally we’re off to a good start for the next few years. But were still several years out until we get to the point where we’ve touched all the areas of the world that I’d like. We haven’t really haven’t made any initiatives in Latin or South America so we’re some years away from completing that whole international distribution chain. There’s a lot of room to move yet.
We always think about new products and new markets – especially as we are in a slightly mature market here in the US. We are starting to look at our products in other markets outside of fire. Markets like EMS, law enforcement and the prison industry, for example. We’ve has a fair amount of success without the need to directly market to those segments, just through marketing the fire. It might be that a voluntary fire-fighter on site is also a law enforcement officer and they apply one of our products elsewhere. So that’s my plan – to move into adjacent markets.
Last year we won the Minnesota Governor’s Award for Export Excellence. It was in recognition of the advancements in exporting that a small Minnesota-based company has made both in terms of employment and sales. I think we’ve got a lot of opportunities ahead of us and we need to control our own destiny because we do manufacture our own products. In the States at least, we’re really the only company in our market that manufactures their own products. When you do that it’s just a lot easier to control where you’re going, not only in terms of quality of the product and delivery but product development. We’ve always been on the cutting edge of product development. We built a product with virtually no planned obsolescence. If we sell as an example, and the only thing in our bag are fire lockers, and we sell that to the authorities in the towns you live in, unless you develop another fire station then we have no other products and we have nothing to sell you. We recognised that 15 years ago. It’s important for us every year that FDIC rolls around that we have some new products; fortunately we’re in an industry where our end users tell us what they need and they can be very vocal about that and we listen. Therefore that has really provided the impetus for a lot of new products, so if you look within our range you’ll see a lot of new products. I have a tendency to name those after the fire departments that we work with – things like the Slinger workstation, the Miami system – all of these are products that our customers really came to us with and we collaborated and eventually designed products that met their requirements.
The fact that you name your products after customers is a really nice touch. It shows a lot of integrity I think. I’d imagine that their response is very positive?
I think so. Slinger, Wisconsin is a good example. It’s a small town near Milwaukee and it’s a largely voluntary fire department. As they set about to build a new fire station they came to us with general concepts and sketches. We are very good at turning these things into realities and I think when they see designs take shape not only for their own use but for the use of other departments, they take a lot of pride in it. They make it a point to come back every year and visit us at FDIC for example.
Going back to what you said in regards to FRI and tradeshows, our impression was that a lot of people were beginning to feel that the market was over-saturated with trade shows and events in the US and it would be better to concentrate on one or two big events. What are your thoughts on this?
The nature in which we sell in this country is different than we sell in the UK or other countries. We go to the market by and large direct here in the US. We’ve always felt that the trade shows play a very important role perhaps even a more important role than others who have a different distribution model because it is perhaps that one chance that they actually get to see the product, feel the product. So trade shows plays a vital role and always have for us. Having said that, I don’t think you need to be an expert to recognise that trade shows right now in the fire service are seeing a lot of challenges with attendance – and a lot of that is budget driven. I don’t think this will be a permanent problem, I think things might improve, but I don’t think things will return to the way they were 10 years ago.
So it’s almost as if we’re moving towards a new normal from a business point of view?
Yes, I think some of the publication and trade show organisers recognise this and are beginning to do things a bit differently. For example, rather than one big trade show (look at the UK and its roadshows) you might see more small shows – regional or topic-specific shows (apparatus or station design focussed perhaps). ICHIEFS have had success with regional shows that are attended by larger fire departments, with more of a one-on-one audience.
