This CEO plays a solid round of business

Listen to this article

It has been said many times that a bad day at golf is better than a good day at work. Bruce Dan might disagree.
As owner of Izzo Golf Inc., Dan lives the sport, day in and day out.
“Business can be golf. Every time I’m playing golf it’s business. I’m product testing,” says the 45-year-old owner and CEO of Izzo Golf.
A self-professed golf fanatic, Dan arrived in Rochester from his hometown of Chicago nearly 16 years ago to help out his father, who had purchased Morris Rosenbloom & Co. Inc. in 1987. The 120-year-old wholesale distribution company was located in a five-story warehouse downtown, with scattered inventory and no computer system.
“My first job was to get them automated,” Dan says. “Then I just fell in love with the idea of seeing what I could do with Morris Rosenbloom. And that kind of evolved into all that we do now.”
He decided to stay in this area and within a couple of years had bought half the company from his father, who is no longer involved in the management of the business. Looking to diversify, in 1996 he purchased Gold Eagle, a division of Sports Supply Group. Primarily known for its accessories, Gold Eagle thrust the company into the golf industry. By 1999 Dan was looking for branded companies and purchased Par Classic, known for its golf hitting nets.
At the same time, while scouting trade shows, Dan had a chance meeting with T.J. Izzo, owner of Denver-based Izzo Golf and inventor of the dual-strap carry system. Izzo is a Penfield native who grew up playing golf at Penfield Country Club.
“All of a sudden we had this connection,” Dan recalls. “It made for an interesting bond.”
Dan purchased Izzo Golf in 2000 and moved the company’s headquarters to Macedon. While its primary U.S. distribution center is local, the company distributes in the United Kingdom from Romsey-Hampshire and is working on opening a West Coast supply center for Izzo Golf and the company’s packaging and water businesses.
Dan declined to disclose financial details but says revenue at Izzo Golf has tripled since 2000. The company employs some 90 staffers locally, with 150 employees worldwide.
The company has gone through a series of changes over the years, Dan says, beginning with the decision to shed many products Morris Rosenbloom offered and then move into various other industries.
“We went on a little acquisition binge,” Dan says. “We used the money we made from Morris Rosenbloom all those years as a distributor and got into golf, water filtration, packaging and ad specialty.”

Diversification

Dan always has been a big supporter of diversification, he says. As a twentysomething fresh out of Indiana University he took a job at Abbott Laboratories Inc. in a financial training program. He remembers being highly influenced by what he saw there.
“I was working in the corporate accounting department and we had all the columnar worksheets and they had something like nine operating divisions,” he recalls. “I remember being so impressed because I had all their historical information and one year the pharmaceutical division would be down but chemicals would be up.
“It kind of hit me as a young kid out of school of the importance of diversification,” he adds. “That’s why we have our hands here in more businesses than just Izzo.”
Dan also is owner of DeVara, a subsidiary of Morris Rosenbloom, which is a supplier of consumer electronics, watches and novelties designed for the promotional products industry. In addition, he is the majority owner of Premier Retail Inc., a retail packaging vendor that caters to the smaller retailer, and Water Technologies Inc., a water treatment equipment company he purchased in 1999.
But the Izzo brand probably has the most name recognition. Izzo Golf is widely known for its dual-strap carry system, an invention that has been called by the United States Golf Association one of the four greatest innovations in modern golf. The dual strap, which resembles that on a book bag and is more ergonomic for golfers, is used on 98 percent of all carry bags, with the Izzo brand accounting for some 70 percent of the market.
The company does not focus solely on its straps though. Izzo emphasizes its golf bags, training aids and accessories.
“When you talk about accessories it’s not as fun,” Dan says. “It’s like the tchotchke business of golf-your bead counters, Wiffle balls, all the little things you’d see on the wall of a sporting goods store.”
Gold Eagle is the company’s flagship brand for golf accessories, but Izzo also has a license agreement with Top-Flite Golf, a wholly owned subsidiary of Callaway Golf Co., for which it has the exclusive right to make golf bags and accessories for the Top-Flite brand in North America.
The Izzo brand is recognizable in the industry, says Eric Gilbert, director of product development and marketing, and that is one of the company’s biggest strengths. But the diversity of the company’s staff and its leadership set the firm apart from its competitors.
“This is a neat company for me,” he says. “(Bruce) sets a vision and he goes about his business. He has a nice hands-off-but aware-mentality. He’s there as our resource and that works out real nicely.”
That kind of style fosters creativity, autonomy and people who want to do a great job, he adds.
Travis Worth, president of Izzo Golf, agrees.
“From a management standpoint, if our subordinates do well it’s because they’re good; if they don’t, it’s because they didn’t get the right direction,” he says.
Worth describes the atmosphere at Izzo Golf as open and collegial, and he says people are encouraged to say what is on their minds.
“It’s OK for people to tell me I’m nuts,” he says. “Bruce is the same way. He loves it when someone has a strong counterproposal to something he’s thinking about as long as it’s logical and intelligent.”
Worth says one great thing about working with Dan is his flexibility.
“I’ve seen him change his viewpoint 180 degrees when presented with facts and evidence,” he explains.
Gilbert calls Dan a practical thinker but one who always is looking at things from a visionary point of view and with an open mind.
“Sometimes we come up with some pretty whacked-out stuff and he looks at it and says, ‘That might not work next year but let’s get it out there and maybe in three years,'” Gilbert adds. “That makes my job easy.”
Worth adds, “Bruce is a master at getting people to communicate what’s on their mind and then taking that communication and turning it into something positive.”
Dan is a wonderful arguer, and he rarely loses an argument because he is so good at communicating his viewpoint, he adds.
“He can argue for or against the same issue,” Worth says. “It’s very freewheeling, and the conversation goes very fast. Even if he doesn’t agree with people he still makes them feel good about the process.”

The company culture

The cornerstone of the company’s success, Dan says, is the people who design the product and execute the strategies.
“People, people, people,” he says. “I would put our team of executives against any Fortune 500 top guys. Below that leadership we have good, loyal people who show up every day and work hard and care.”
Part of that loyalty may come from the company’s careful hiring practices.
“We try not to overhire,” Dan explains. “We’re pretty aggressive in our sales and marketing tactics, strategies and acquisitions, but we’re very conservative on putting people’s jobs on the line.”
The company has never had a major layoff, he says. He never wants Izzo Golf to be known as the kind of company where “even if you do your job you may not be around because we might have to let 15 percent go.
“You really would rather work for a company that says, ‘If I do my job, chances are excellent that I’m going to be around for a long time.’ That’s what the average person wants, and that allows us to get better people,” Dan says.
Continuity, longevity and loyalty are crucial in his business, Dan says, and staffers are rewarded for that. Employees can participate in the company’s profit-sharing plan, but only after they have been with Izzo Golf for three years.
“The reality is, people are a lot more productive after they’ve been here three years,” he explains. “And you know what else? After they’ve been here three years, they tend to be lifers. Experience counts. It’s valuable, so we value it.”
“When people work here, if they do what they’re supposed to do when they’re supposed to do it, they’ll have a job for a long, long time,” Worth adds. “I think the culture here really relishes that and we celebrate that.”
“The corporate culture is extremely professional,” says Mark Verdi of the Walter C. Taylor Agency Inc., Izzo Golf’s insurance carrier. “Bruce has surrounded himself with the most professional management team around. He has superior leadership skills and they follow his lead. They do it with the same passion and dedication he has.”
Verdi, also Dan’s longtime friend, says Dan lets his people do their jobs but he knows everything that’s going on.
“He’s the point man; they follow his lead,” he adds.
Getting involved in and staying focused on a handful of different industries is one of the challenges Izzo Golf employees face each day, Dan says. Though he is a big believer in diversification, Dan acknowledges it can be disconcerting.
“I ask myself and some of my guys to juggle a lot of balls,” he says. “Let’s talk about water now. Let’s talk about golf tomorrow. Some people have the luxury of focusing on one business and one business only. Most of my top people have the challenge of multitasking at a pretty high level.”
Another challenge he faces daily is the desire to be the biggest company-fast, like tomorrow.
“We’re good at what we’re doing and things are going well,” he says, “but I’m impatient because we all would like to be twice as big by next year. And it doesn’t work that way. We’d all like to be the kings in every industry we play in sooner, not later.”
By nature, Dan says, most successful managers and executives are not overly patient people.
“We force ourselves to be patient because it’s the right thing to do. But if the truth be known, we want to go hard and fast and we want it today,” he says.

Dedication a key

Verdi says his friend is patient and dedicated. He recalls how Dan’s youngest daughter last year asked if she could have a tree house.
“The average person would get a few sheets of plywood, a couple of two-by-fours and be done with it,” he says. “Not Bruce. He went on the Internet, did all sorts of research on how to build tree houses, printed out a set of plans and set out on his way.”
Dan worked on the project for weeks, maybe months, before he finally finished, and endured a few injuries along the way, Verdi says.
“I went over there one day to help with a lift machine he rented and I quickly realized that he was not building a tree house, he was building a house in a tree,” he says.
He asked Dan why he did not just hire someone to save time, a few scars and the near-death experiences.
“He said that it wasn’t about a tree house; it was about the commitment and sacrifice he made for his daughter and the experience they shared from the planning stages all the way to the last shingle. She’ll never forget any of that,” Verdi adds.
Commitment and loyalty on the job has helped forge friendships among employees and create an enjoyable atmosphere. Dan says one of the biggest surprises over the years has been how much fun the job remains.
“We know how to have a good time while being serious. And that’s probably the biggest surprise, how that’s sustained itself over the years, how we all kind of mesh,” he says.
Employees of Izzo Golf have fun on the job and form bonds outside of work as well. Though it is not a job prerequisite, employees are urged to take up golf, and many do.
Staffers formed a league this year and family and friends are encouraged to join them on the links.
“That’s why, on a nice summer day, this place could be empty,” Dan says. “Fortunately the weather stinks a lot. If we were in Florida we’d have no productivity.”

New products

But Izzo Golf has been productive. The company is getting ready to roll out the largest bag collection in its history. When Dan bought the company in 2000, it had few models, he says. Realizing that retailers want to see a collection of bags, and knowing that the Izzo brand is strong enough for a wide variety of golf bags, the company has been broadening the line each year, Dan says.
“We do a really good job in the bag business and we’re competitive,” he says. “And we do a good job in accessories. We have our share.”
But what gets Dan most excited is the company’s growth potential in its training-aid business.
“The industry is starting to see us as a training-aid company as much as they are a bag company or an accessory company. And we’re starting to see more Izzo training centers popping up in establishments across the country,” he explains.
The training centers are sections of a store filled with Izzo training aids.
Because golfers are always looking to “be good”-Izzo Golf’s tag line-training aids are crucial to the game, Dan says. Izzo offers items such as the Stabi-Lazer, a device that clips on to a hat and beams a laser so golfers can see exactly where they are hitting.
The company also offers pop-up practice nets, practice nets small enough to fold up and store in a golf bag and items such as the Transfer Station, which helps golfers with a reverse pivot.
Izzo Golf has a strategic partnership with Golf Magazine in which the magazine’s name appears on Izzo’s training aids and inside the packages are tips and instructions on how to use the product, written by experts at the magazine.
“We have a nice partnership with them,” Dan says. “That’s why you’ll see us advertising in Golf Magazine. They are a very credible name to put with a golf training aid because a big part of what they write about is how to get better.”
Dan does not particularly believe in short-term goals. One long-term goal is for the company to reach the upper echelon of branded businesses, he says.
“Our goal on the accessory side is to get more customers like Target,” he says. “On the bag side, we want to be in as many pro shops as possible. We want the golf pros around the country to want Izzo.”
Izzo Golf products can be found in catalogs, golf specialty stores, sporting goods stores and pro shops, as well as at mass merchandisers such as Target Corp.
“Any retailer that sells legitimate golf products is someone that we probably want to sell to,” Dan says. “Our job is not so much where you are selling it. Internally we talk a lot about how to sell more of it in each store, because we have a lot to offer.”
Izzo Golf offers 10 to 15 new products each year and has roughly 70 new products in the works for 2005. They range from contour straps to attachment systems to ultra-light bags weighing less than four pounds.
“We want to fill a pipeline for our customers to offer innovative new products as much as we can,” Gilbert says.
“In the training aid category we think we’re the leader,” he adds. “We’ve got something for everyone.”

A job and a hobby

Off the job, Dan is an avid golfer whose favorite course is Penfield Country Club.
“I’ve played a ton of really nice courses,” he says. “I think (Penfield) is challenging, it’s in immaculate condition and it’s consistent.”
His friends would say he has one challenge: his short game.
“Bruce went to a very expensive golf school to learn about the short game and for a year or almost two he putted extremely well,” says Izzo’s Worth. “Somehow last summer he forgot how to putt.”
“There’s an open joke we have and true to the golf freak’s mentality, I’ve seen him with a different putter every time we’ve golfed,” Izzo’s Gilbert adds. “He has different stances for each putt. It’s the monster in his closet.”
Perhaps that is because the Penfield resident says his real No. 1 hobby is spending time with his children: Jessica, 22, Jamie, 20, Jacob, 16, Nathan, 13, and Chava, 11.
“I’ve always been proud of staying close to my kids and finding things to do that my kids enjoy at whatever stage in their lives,” he says.
When he is not building tree houses, Dan and partner Wendy Freida also enjoy traveling, and he takes trips with each of his children individually every year. His favorite destination is Europe because of its rich history. And traveling also enables him to indulge his penchant for Jewish history, he says.
But when he is out of town traveling for long periods, Dan says he is amazed at how much he misses work.
“It’s a surprise when, if I haven’t been in the office in a while, how much I miss hanging around these guys and going to lunch and even our meetings, because we laugh a lot,” he says.
“In a lot of places work is work, not necessarily a fun place to be,” Worth says. “But working for Bruce and working in this company is fun. You look forward to coming here on a daily basis. That’s a luxury most people don’t ever get.”
([email protected])

03/19/04 (C) Rochester Business Journal