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This is Fred Ball for Zions Bank, speaking on business.
Did you know that Salt Lake City is home to the most recognized brands in archery and bow hunting? Yesterday I told you about Easton Technical Products, the leading arrow manufacturer in the world. Today I would like to tell you about Easton's equally prominent sister company, Hoyt Archery.
Like Easton's arrows, Hoyt's high-end archery bows and accessories are the standard in the industry, used at every level of recreation and competition. President Randy Walk tells me that 75 percent of Olympic archers use Hoyt bows.
Earl Hoyt Sr. and Earl Hoyt Jr. established Hoyt Archery in 1931. Easton acquired the company in 1983 and over the next 15 years, transitioned its St. Louis operations to Salt Lake City.
The Salt Lake facility now has about 230 employees who design, manufacture and market Hoyt, Fuse and Reflex bows and accessories. Randy became involved in archery at an early age. His parents owned an archery retail shop, and later he joined Hoyt to work his way though the University of Utah, where he received an engineering degree. He was eventually promoted to coordinate the company's manufacturing and engineering team, and then to president in 1995.
While bows and arrows have existed for thousands of years, Randy says that technology has advanced rapidly in recent years. Hoyt stays ahead of competition by aggressively innovating new technology; it holds more than 20 archery patents.
Randy says most U.S. customers use Hoyt's products for bow hunting, while the overwhelming majority of European and Asian customers practice target archery. And even with 75 years of success to its name, Hoyt Archery continues to aim high and set new goals to expand at home and abroad.
For Zions Bank, I'm Fred Ball. I'm speaking on business.
