So your dream is to run a paddlesports company? How about six? Nando Zucchi is the general manager of Johnson Outdoors Paddlesports, which means that he runs six major brands: Necky, Old Town, Ocean Kayak, Extrasport, Carlisle Paddles and the newest addition, Lendal Paddles of Scotland.
The Johnson company association runs deep for Zucchi. Not only did he graduate from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of management (yes, that Johnson), he also worked for Johnson Wax after graduating. Then he left the fold and headed to Kodak, running their 35mm film business for North America, but eventually he was drawn back to Johnson four years ago.
So, is Nando a suit-wearing corporate master, or is he living the life and following the dream? Sounds to us like more of the latter, especially when it comes to paddling toys. He has his pick of Necky boats, and his personal quiver includes a Chatham 16 and a carbon Spyder surf-specific kayak. “If I’m going to do a fun race or something I’ll just go grab our in-house Looksha II race boat. I also get out in prototypes that are still in development—they usually look terrible but paddle great.”
“The whole ‘corporate thing’ is kind of funny,” he says. “People think that we’re this huge company with limitless budgets, but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like total grassroots hands-on stuff, and I wear a lot of different hats on a daily basis—one minute I’ll be working with the folks in R&D and the next I’ll be working with the guys on the production line. I bring my dog Connor to work every day and neither of us wears a suit.”
IN OTHER WORDS:
Impress the boss
“I was recruited for this job by group vice president of watercraft Mark Leopold. They had pretty specific criteria. They wanted someone who paddled, did not currently work at Johnson, and had extensive knowledge of packaged goods marketing. I had been the marketing guy at Johnson for Pledge, Windex and Raid, so they knew me and my abilities, and one day my name came up.”
Work hard, play hard
“You’ve also got to get out and use the gear. At the end of last summer we put together a trip to the Broken Group on the west coast of Vancouver Island to do some product testing and generate some photos and video. The paddlesports management team and a couple of guys from R&D went, and about two weeks before the trip, Helen Johnson herself (chairman and CEO of Johnson Outdoors Inc.) heard about it and asked if she could come. How cool is that? And, the first day of the trip was my first day back ‘in the office’ after my vacation.”
Stop and chop
“I’m the guy who actually stopped the Necky production line. That was tough. In those very early days after moving production from B.C. to its current location in Ferndale, Washington, we had major issues, and we needed to relearn how to make good boats. We unwrapped and inspected close to 700 finished kayaks. About 230 were chopped because they weren’t good enough. It was terrible, and we took a huge hit on it, but it was the right thing to do.”
This article first appeared in the Spring 2007 issue of Adventure Kayak Magazine. For more great content, subscribe to Adventure Kayak’s print and digital editions here.
