Shoemaker fulfills dream, revitalizes company

by Nick Kowalczyk
For the Post

Synopsis: Nelsonville, which boomed during the 1800s and early-1900s because of the coal industry, arguably was abandoned by most industry during the Great Depression. In 1932, brothers William and F.M. Brooks founded a shoe factory that employed almost 140 residents by 1935. But William sold the business in 1959 despite the wishes of F.M.'s son, John.

NELSONVILLE - On a sunny day in 1975, Chuck Shafer walked out of a storefront into the historic town square and heard someone call his name.

When he looked, he saw the rumpled figure of John Brooks, his former boss and friend of almost 40 years. Shafer, a broad-shouldered, longtime resident in his mid-60s, had retired from the William Brooks Shoe Co. in 1971 after 39 years as a factory worker and foreman.

John, then 55, was curiously happy, and he waved a piece of paper in the air.

The now 91-year-old Shafer recalled John yelling, "'I got it! I got it! It's mine.'" The two men met, and John explained the paper. It was proof of his latest purchase - the shoe company his uncle had sold 16 years earlier to the Irving Drew Shoe Co. in Lancaster.

John looked at the older man and asked, "When are you coming back to work?"

"I started yesterday," Shafer replied.

'He didn't buy it to get rich'

Acquiring the Nelsonville shoe factory in the mid-1970s was tantamount to trading gold for an acre of swamp.

Audrey Shafer, Chuck's wife, worked at the business for 21 years, and said the Irving Drew Shoe Company owners had created a different atmosphere.

"They didn't help the business, and they were people who didn't socialize," she said. "You didn't amount to nothing as far as they were concerned."

The demoralized workforce and the antiquated machinery discouraged buyers. And the owners at the time knew that.

The company had lost money, and within the last 20 years, Ohio had lost six non-rubber shoe manufacturers. The national economy was grinding its way up from a downturn.

"There was no investment in the business or buildings or in the people," Mike Brooks said. "It was a company with one place to go, and that was down."

Mike is John's oldest son and the current president of the company, which is now called Rocky Shoes and Boots.

On the day before Thanksgiving 1974, the owners told employees the factory would close within months. They could not find a buyer who would pay the more than $1.2 million asking price, which equals, at most, $4.2 million when adjusted for inflation.

But John convinced the owners to sell it to him for $640,000, which would equal almost $2 million today. He paid a $500 deposit to show his intent. About 130 workers at that time made women's orthopedic shoes, or "old women's running shoes," as John called them.

But John didn't have the rest of the money. When his uncle sold the business, John was crushed, but he refused to leave Nelsonville and the factory.

He phoned the news to his son, Mike, who had wanted to work at the company but decided otherwise after the 1959 sale. An optimistic, aggressive businessman with a straightforward manner, Mike was a popular face in Nelsonville. He found his interests in sports and student council, but not in academics. He avoided college and instead studied at Ars Satoria, a prestigious shoe design school in Milan, Italy. In the 1970s, he sold leather for a Milwaukee tannery.

At 30, Mike volunteered to return as a salesman for his dad. The always-cautious John warned his son that he shouldn't risk his future: Mike should stay in Wisconsin, and John would call if things went well.

Mike told his boss the next day that he was quitting. Shortly after that he moved his wife and children back into his parents' house.

John, agitated that Mike did not listen to him, assigned his son a task - get a loan for $640,000.

Mike enlisted help from fellow employee and high school friend David Fraedrich, who now is the company's chief financial officer. The two men combed Southeast Ohio for lenders.

They contacted Republican Congressman Clarence Miller, of Lancaster, and asked for his help. Miller, whose district included Nelsonville, did not want the factory to close. He secured assistance from the Farmer's Home Administration. The administration, which gives loans in low-income rural areas, would guarantee 90 percent of the money necessary. With the government supporting John and the business, finding the money became easier.

Five banks eventually agreed to lend.

On the day of the signing, Mike remembered a roomful of bankers and lawyers sitting with an icy demeanor - until one walked in late. Vic Oakley, president of the bank that contributed the most money, stormed into the room wearing a tousled suit and an askew necktie, and without any attorneys or forms. Oakley took a $200,000 check out of his lapel and threw it on the table.

When asked if he would question John and watch the signing, Oakley replied, "If Johnny Brooks said he'll pay me back, that's good enough for me. He'll pay me back." With that, Mike remembers, Oakley left as abruptly as he entered.

John wasn't as confident. He knew problems lay ahead, but the business still was a worthwhile gamble. He had kept his job, and he had kept his friends' jobs. But he and his wife Gloria (née Hoodlett) agreed that if the company failed, they would lose everything.

"(John) was a very unique person, and the reason he bought that company shows that," said Bob Hollenbaugh, a family friend and Rocky sales representative in California. "He didn't buy it to get rich."

'Brooks was Brooks again'

Citizens of Nelsonville were ecstatic - local people once again owned their business. The previous owners primarily kept offices in Lancaster and seldom went into the factory. Most owner-employee contact was through written notices.

"(The sale) meant we were back where we started from," former employee Audrey Shafer said. "Johnny was back and Brooks was Brooks again."

The honeymoon would not last.

The business had no money for operating costs after the sale. Officials borrowed another $100,000 and spent it as if they were "going to McDonald's with a $10 bill," Mike said.

The business hung on a thumbtack almost monthly. Sometimes the company didn't even have enough money to make payroll. The company sold mainly to J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and Sears, Roebuck and Co., but it did not have its own brand.

Mike thought that with a brand name, the company could establish a rapport with customers who might not always buy the same shoe but who always bought the same brand.

In 1977, Mike designed an oblique, square-toe work boot that sold mainly through J.C. Penney. It was the original "Rocky boot," and Mike won a designer award from the Leather Industries of America.

A few years later, a buyer walked through the factory and noticed a red-laced hiking boot. The boots were not for sale; the designers made them only as a favor for Hollenbaugh, then a company vice president, who couldn't afford to buy new boots for his next trip as a scoutmaster. The buyer took Hollenbaugh's boots, and the shoes became fashionable.

"Everybody wanted (the red-laced shoes)," Hollenbaugh recalled. "That really was the thing that kept us going."

'Does your father know you're here?'

Although outdoor footwear became a mainstay of the company, Mike did not see prosperity ahead. Profit margins were low, and his dad worked six days a week for the equivalent of almost $60,500 a year today. But John was indebted the equivalent of almost $2 million in today's currency. Mike was a young man and didn't want such a meager future.

In 1979, Mike took one of his monthly trips to Chicago to meet a buyer from Sears, which bought about 40 percent of the company's production. Mike, who steered the business side while John managed the factory, readied himself for the meeting. The prices of leather, labor and overall production were up, and Mike wanted 50 cents more for each pair. But Mike knew the buyer would see the price raise as pure rudeness.

At the meeting, the buyer refused the request and stared at Mike, "Does your father know you're here?" he asked.

Mike explained his reasons and said John approved, but the buyer would not listen. He told Mike to go home and bring his dad to Chicago. He wanted to see John.

John hated to fly, and Mike scripted him throughout the eight-hour drive about what to tell the Sears buyer. Mike knew his dad feared losing the contract and also that he was not as concerned about profit.

The buyer was a perfect gentleman when Mike returned to the 38th floor of the Sears Tower a week later. For John he had compliments, questions about family and concerns that an expert shoemaker like John couldn't make shoes at the same price anymore.

Mike remembered that John buckled and admitted, "'I can make shoes for the same price, but Mike thinks we need more money.'"

Mike was livid. He understood his father's fear of losing Sears' 150,000-pair contract, but he couldn't hold in his anger.

He demanded the price increase and said the factory would not produce Sears' shoes without it. At the end of the meeting, the buyer promised two things - he'd concede the extra 50 cents, but he'd replace Brooks' contract immediately.

It was a long drive home, and Mike was ready to quit. John had limited the company's growth because of the risks. But John was upset because his son gambled the small, family-owned business and its employees.

The company, however, recently had developed its first hunting boot, the "Stalker," which Mike prepared for a Dallas trade show. Before he left, he promised his dad two things: either he would sell the new boots for twice what Sears paid, or, if the boots flopped, he would go to Sears and grovel.

For the first time, people lined Mike's booth and demanded shoes. The company had found its biggest market - rugged, outdoor footwear - and it could afford to cut loose stores that didn't pay what Mike wanted. He found a phone to call John.

"We're going fill your factory up with these shoes, and with a profit," Mike told his dad. "We're not going back to Chicago."

To be continued in Wednesday's edition of The Post in story three of Rocky Shoes and Boots: A Historical Profile.