American icons look abroad to cut manufacturing costs

Houston can remember the first Zebco reel he saw. It was a Zebco 33 and built as solid as the 1950s into which it was born. And when his grandfather gave it a try, one cast sent the line singing all the way from the back door to the outhouse.

So easy to use, Americans bought into the Tulsa-made 33 hook, line and sinker for four decades. But those sales have slowed, and now Zebco is sending its production abroad.

"It’s pretty sad. This is probably the great American reel," said Houston, who knew some of the workers who lost their jobs when Zebco closed its plant here earlier this month. "It’s almost like Chevrolets and baseball and apple pie."

But Zebco isn’t the only U.S. manufacturer of note to ship out to a cheaper locale. Converse Inc., the venerable sneaker maker, and Lionel LLC, whose model trains were long a fixture under Christmas trees across America, recently announced that they would close down U.S. plants in favor of Asian factories.

All three companies said the moves were a matter of making money or losing out to the competition. Most of their rivals made the move to cheaper Asian production years ago.

"I’d rather see Lionel continue to exist, even if it has to be made in Asia," said Richard Maddox, president and chief operating officer of the Chesterfield Township, Mich.-based company, which announced on Feb. 1 the end of 100 years of U.S. production.

Lionel faced competitors who could offer similar products sometimes at half the price. The company can buy model trains from Asia for 40 percent less than what it costs to make them itself in the United States, Maddox said.

"What we’ve attempted to do here is save an American icon that’s 100 years old and ensure it has another 100 years," he said. "(Competition) gave us no choice but to go offshore."

Converse’s announcement a week earlier that it would shutter three North American plants came as part of a bankruptcy reorganization. It was a decision the 93-year-old North Reading, Mass., company made reluctantly, said spokesman Mark Shuster.

But its competitors, too, had already made the move and competitive pricing is even more important in the international market, where Converse now conducts the majority of its business, he said.

Zebco probably should have acted sooner than it did, said Jeff Pontius, the company’s president since 1998. Most U.S. tackle manufacturers moved all but high-end reel production offshore decades ago. But it wasn’t until China emerged as a low-end reel power in the 1990s that the company found itself in trouble, Pontius said.

"We can’t buy the parts here for what it costs to get the entire product from there," he said.

Zebco lost about 40 percent of the spin-cast reel market share between 1995 and 2000, Pontius said. Volume peaked at 7 million reels in 1995. Customers were telling the company "You guys better get with it," he said.

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