Footwear Insight

44 • Footwear Insight ~ May/June 2019 footwearinsight.com From Saving Souls to Selling Soles By Bob McGee I t's a beautiful late February morning in San Antonio when Tom Adams walks into the board room of his local patent attorney to discuss Fit2 (pronounced Fit Squared) Shoes, and the journey that led him to spend more than eight years and invest capital from nearly a dozen investors on two patents. Tom Adams is in exclusive company: At 87, he's one of only a handful of active octogenarian "shoe dogs" still in the footwear business. What makes Adams' story different than his counterparts in the 80-plus set (including Phil Knight, Jerry Turner and Rusty Saunders) is his inventive spirit and unrelenting drive to make one more deal. It's been an unlikely career in the shoe business for a kid who grew up poor in Brockaway, PA and who spent eight years as a Roman Catholic priest — including two as a MaryKnoll missionary in South America. Today, after starting three footwear companies, Adams is working daily to sell or license two closure-system patents he says can revolutionize how the foot is locked down, and do away with the need for shoelaces, a product he says is in dire need of replacing. Actually, Adams' obsession with the shoelace is more than a half-century old. In 1966, as he transitioned to civilian life (Adams was granted permission to leave the priesthood in April 1966 due to health issues), the lifelong tinkerer obtained a patent for a double-laced shoe and wrote to nearly all athletic shoe makers at the time. When four years passed without any serious interest, he began devising a plan to create a company around the concept, which had come to him during a 1962 tennis match where one of his laces snapped. The result was Kaepa, founded in 1975, which sold a split vamp, double- lace athletic shoe in the cheerleading, volleyball, tennis and casual athletic segments and surpassed $100 million in revenues in the early 1980s before being sold to Wolverine Worldwide in 1985. Subsequently, and with varied success, the one- time real estate agent started two other footwear companies in his adopted hometown in southern Texas: In-Stride, focused on cheerleaders, healthcare workers, expectant mothers and casual-athletic consumers; and USA Retama, a shortlived footwear company that launched in the early '90s. Adams also established Innova Inc., focused on researching ideas, patents and new products for development of domestic and international marketing and acquiring exclusive footwear rights to a thermo-plastic tie that can serve as a replacement for Velcro. Today, it's the "Single Pull and Double Pull Fit Adjustment For Shoes" and "Single Pull and Double Pull Squared-Cord Shoe Closure System" patents that he's betting on. It's been a process: The first patent took four and a half years to secure, the second, two and a half. In between, a small batch of prototypes were made and sold in the local market to test and to gauge consumer interest in the technology. Now, Adams is hopeful the patents pique the interest of a major shoe brand or two looking to ditch the lace and offer something new to consumers. "In the past, the shoe business has stayed away from medial side closures for fear people will trip," says Adams. "But we addressed that issue with the first patent. The concept makes it easy for all to get into their shoes." Over the last few years, lace options, foot scanning systems and customized insoles have all reached new heights. Boa and Hickies are just two of the many brands addressing closure systems with devices. And companies such as Aetrex and Volumental, along with Dr. Scholl's, are focusing on the foot-scanning device market, all in an effort to help the consumer secure the right size and style best suited for their feet. Meanwhile, Nike is expanding its HyperAdapt technology, which uses a pressure sensor in the heel to detect a foot's presence and a motor in the sole and a network of cables that tighten over the bridge of the foot, all for the cool retail price of $720. In February, the Swoosh introduced its $350 Adapt basketball shoe with an advanced power lacing system controlled by a mobile app. And Puma will introduce its new Fit Intelligence (Fi) concept in a $330 training shoe for workouts and light running in 2020 after a beta testing program this year. The technology, an evolution of the 1991 Disc cable closure system and 2016's AutoDisc, allows wearers to Fit2 founder Tom Adams. INDUSTRY PROFILE

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