Objectives

To cooperate with North American, European, and other distributors to source products in Asia. Also, to offer a continuing contact and presence at Asian manufacturing facilities, through a combination of American and Asian partners, to meet the needs of clients to compete in their markets with specific cost and quality requirements.

Assets

• Personal:

  Experience in Asia – Numerous and frequent business trips to China, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam, have provided ample experience working with Asian factories. I have a strong understanding of the importance of mutually-respectful, open, and productive business relationships with Asian partners. I also understand the need for strict attention to detail, given the complications of cross-cultural communication.

Extensive manufacturing experience – I have a technical and manufacturing background, and experience in designing and managing the certification of footwear products to American, European, and Canadian standards. I also have extensive experience with product testing, troubleshooting manufacturing problems, determining failure modes of defective rubber products, and devising solutions to those failures.

• Professional:

  Employment with LaCrosse Footwear, Inc.: 24 years (continuous from 10/1/77 to 12/1/2001). Positions held included:

  • Factory worker
  • Lab Technician
  • Development Chemist
  • Product Development Manager, Rubber Occupational

• Current employment:

President/Owner, “NorthStar Rubber Specialties, LLC”, since 2001, specializing in footwear design and manufacturing, rubber compounding.

• Publications

Books:

• Rubber Boots: Understanding an Industry, plus Hacks and Compromises, Released online December 2023
• A Beginner's Gude to Gambas, Revised for Version 3, Infinity Publishing, July, 2011

Technical Articles:

• A Solution to the West Coast 6PPD Problem is Already Available.pdf, Released online December 2023
• Proposal for realistic conditioning and preparation of rubber sample material for comparative testing of 6PPD and Durazone 37, Released online December 2023
• Critique and proposal to remedy deficiencies of the ASTM D1149 Bent Loop test, Released online July 2025

Patents:

• “Boot Having Gritted Outsole”, (pat. #5,038,500), Aug. 13, 1991
• “Thermoplastic-Rubber Wader and Method of Manufacture”, (pat. #4,858,342), May 27, 1988

• Professional memberships:

• American Chemical Society/Rubber Division
• National Fire Protection Association

• Academic:

• BA Political Science/Russian Language, University of Florida, 1969-72; including 1 year each of Chemistry, Biology, and Statistics.
• Viterbo University, 1987-88; 1 year of Anatomy and Physiology.
• University of Wisconsin, 1988-90; 1 year each of Organic Chemistry and Calculus.