Hunt stepping up to CEO at Mason Companies

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By MARK GUNDERMAN mark.gunderman@lee.net
Saturday, May 5, 2007 10:50 PM CDT

Most people don’t give much thought to those temporary jobs they had back in college. But Dan Hunt will never forget the one he landed.

He had signed up to begin studying accounting at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire at the time.

“A friend introduced me to John Lubs, executive vice president at Mason Shoe, who said they had a few projects to work on,” Hunt recalls.

A three-month job turned into a part-time job. Then the full time purchasing manager left and Hunt was soon working full time and going to school part time.

It all started in 1987. Now Hunt is the CEO of one of the oldest, most historic companies in Chippewa Falls, having played a strong role in a series of major changes in the company’s focus.

Not bad for a temporary-job start. And Hunt did it without even leaving his home town.

“I feel very fortunate to have such a good job working for such a good family business,” Hunt said.

Family oriented

It makes sense that Hunt would find a home in a family-oriented company — one that dates back to 1904 and is still under the same family ownership. Hunt comes from quite a large family himself.

One of a family of 10 boys and six girls growing up on the West Hill of Chippewa Falls, Hunt learned to value those family relationships. Parents Harold and Marian are still an inspiration to their children.

They lived just a stone’s-throw away from their church and primary school at St. Charles Borromeo Parish. And at that time, the new hospital hadn’t been built yet.

“We only had to walk across the street to the old hospital, where Mom went every year to bring home another brother or sister,” he said.

Dan attended Lawrence University for a time, then married his wife, Linda, and worked retail for a bit. He entered the accounting program at UW-EC and met Lubs.

Lubs said the fact that Hunt was going back to school impressed management at Mason.

“That indicated to us he was willing to invest in himself,” Lubs said. “That counted quite a bit.”

Hunt graduated in May 1991.

“I was just about to put in my application with the big eight accounting firms when Lubs called and asked me to manage their catalogs.”

Hunt had a good start to that, designing a number of tools used in company marketing. The company then had a sudden need for a vice president of marketing, a job for which Hunt admits he was not quite ready. The company instead made him a director of marketing, working toward the position of vice president.

“We needed to provide him with opportunities to demonstrate his competence,” Lubs said. “We moved him around quite a bit. . . . As we did that, he was able to establish his power base.”

Hunt helped develop a couple of internal catalogs and was involved in the acquisition of more catalogs through the mid-1990s.

Industry changing

Hunt’s involvement came just as Mason Shoe, as well as the entire domestic footwear industry, was changing dramatically.

The company started out making boots for lumberjacks, and then expanded to other types of shoes. Manufacturing facilities in Chippewa Falls expanded. The company gradually expanded a door-to-door sales team, with branch offices in a number of states. That method of marketing hit its peak in the 1950s and ’60s.

The company then began shutting down branch offices and started to recruit local “dealers” who would sell to people they knew. In reality, though, over time these dealers were little more than

regular customers buying for themselves and friends at dealer prices.

Hunt said by the early 1980s the company had worn out that method of marketing, too.

“We had to do something because sales were flattening, and we did not have an alternative,” he said.

Around 1985, Mason started to experiment with a mail order catalog called Wissota Trader.

“That project changed four or five times in the next four or five years,” he said. “We couldn’t find a niche for it.“

In 1990, catalog sales represented only three percent of the business, with the other 97 percent of the business in decline mode. That’s the ship Hunt boarded in 1991 when he took over management of the catalog business.

Wissota Trader was a shoe and apparel catalog. Hunt switched it to strictly footwear and within a year it turned profitable.

A new catalog, the B.A. Mason Catalog, was started in 1992 with an eye toward converting the old “dealers” into catalog buyers and phasing out the dealer concept.

In 1995,, Mason acquired the Maryland Square Catalog, which is still one of the company’s largest.

Manufacturing decline

In the late 1980s, from 70 to 75 percent of company revenues were from manufactured footwear. By 1991, it was down to 60 percent.

Now, the company had long-established relationships with other manufacturers, having them make types of shoes that the company plants didn’t, such as women’s shoes. In the early ’90s, the company was offering brand-name shoes that it didn’t make itself, like New Balance and Easy Spirit.

“The bulk of our growth was coming out of branded footwear,” Hunt said.

Everyone in manufacturing knows the story: Jobs were headed to lower-cost labor markets overseas.

It wasn’t just Mason feeling the pains of change. Brown Shoe Co., the largest supplier of women’s shoes for Mason, had 30 plants in the United States in the 1960s. In the mid-90s it closed its last one.

Mason began to buy more of its shoes directly from factories in China, Italy and Brazil.

Hunt said it tried very hard to increase manufacturing sales with work shoe and sporting goods brands.

“But that became very difficult at the price points,” he said.

Mason tried to build business by selling shoes to retailers, but it was hard to get shelf space against companies that had long been employing that marketing plan.

The company also tested several retail store locations in Wisconsin and Minnesota with an emphasis on manufactured products.

“We spent millions of dollars trying to make those projects successful, in part to try to save our factory,” Hunt said.

The company closed its manufacturing plant in Chippewa Falls in 2003, a year shy of the company’s 100th anniversary.

“It was the most difficult decision I’ve seen the family have to make here, partly because it was a significant part of the heritage of the company, but mostly because it affected the lives of a large number of people,” Hunt said.

The company subsequently changed its name from Mason Shoe Manufacturing Company to Mason Companies Inc.

Catalog and Internet

It may have been painful, but it was the right decision, and inevitable. Hunt said the company had long been transitioning from a manufacturer to a true retailer.

Hunt was in the thick of moving the company in a new direction, taking a leading role in the acquisition and development of more catalogs.

“As time went on, (CEO) Bill (Scobie) and I took over the business, and we operated differently by putting together an operating group,” Lubs said.

“I was the youngest person in upper management then. I had probably the strongest entrepreneurial bent,” Hunt said, recalling how proactive he was in expanding the catalog business.

“Dan was very well respected at that level,” said Lubs.

“It was amazing to see how supportive the company was,” Hunt said. “I probably wouldn’t have had that opportunity at a lot of other companies, to have had that level of support.”

It’s important to note, though, that Hunt was not in charge during the most critical transition years, though he was in upper management. Hunt has high praise for Lubs, Scobie and the other leaders in the company, who brought it through an era in which survival proved difficult.

“Regardless of what we tried, they never over-leveraged the company,” Hunt said.

What they did was position the company so that the next generation could succeed.

The company started a web site in the late 1990s.

“Like everybody, we had to make it through a few bumps in the road,” Hunt recalls.

Now the company has a web site for each of the catalogs it owns, plus the fastest-growing part of the company, Shoemall.com, which features 400 brand names. It was the first Mason effort launched online instead of first starting as a catalog. The site is promoted through an aggressive marketing campaign targeting Internet and fashion-conscious customers.

Another significant development for the company was an installment credit plan offered in two catalogs.

“That represents a growing percentage of our business,” Hunt said.

The company now boasts seven footwear catalogs and the Shoemall.com Internet site. Mason Companies is now one of the largest, direct-to-consumer footwear companies in the country.

Where he belongs

In the spring of 2001, Hunt was named executive vice president, with the message sent loud and clear throughout the company that he was being groomed for the top job as Lubs and Scobie contemplated retirement.

Not only had Hunt shown great management skills, he was just the type of person the company always looked for.

“When we hired people, the first thing we look at is their values. We want to make sure their values match up with the values of the company and the family,” Lubs said. “Dan just exemplified great values.”

Lubs and Scobie retired in 2004 and Hunt took over as president and CEO, while Lubs and Scobie remain on the board of directors. Hunt is the first person to oversee the company as CEO who is not related in some way to the original Mason family.

Rising to CEO of a company like Mason Companies at age 47 is quite an accomplishment for Hunt, one that would put him in line for a continued climb in the corporate world. But Hunt says the thought of marketing his talents to larger companies and going for the big bucks available in the big cities “doesn’t even cross my mind.”

He and Linda have three children, Jeremy’s a freshman at McDonell Central High School, Karena’s a junior at the University of Minnesota and Cassie’s a freshman at UW-Eau Claire. The Hunts know Chippewa Falls is a good place to raise a family.

And Hunt has a lot invested in Chippewa Falls. He helped develop the highly successful Main Street program to revitalize and promote downtown, where Mason still has its outlet store.

He’s served on the United Way Marketing Committee, and on various Chippewa Area Catholic Schools committees. He’s on the Marketing Advisory Council for the UW-Eau Claire School of Business. He serves on the board of the Chippewa Falls Museum of Industry and Technology as well as the national Two-Ten Footwear Foundation.

He’s been a scout leader and coached a number of youth sports teams. “Some before we had children,” he said.

And if all goes as planned, Chippewa Falls Senior High School’s Dorais Field will undergo extensive renovation, including installation of artificial turf, by next fall. Hunt has been involved in the steering committee working on that project as well.

He and Linda have other business interests as well, being part owners, with his brother, Rick and his wife Heather, of the Avalon Hotel and Conference Center and Olson’s Ice Cream.

He feels he is where he belongs.

“My value system is very close to the company value system — being involved in the community, being supportive of one another, good work ethic, and being progressive-minded.”