Q: You were a fire-fighter before you came to Reebok? Did this experience have any bearing on the creation of Pump technology?
A: Yes, when I was on the scene trying to stabilise a limb, or help somebody in shock, we used inflatable cast systems that help to immobilise limbs.
Q: So some of the inspiration came from the medical industry - but Reebok use it for fitness… how did you get there?
A: We looked at how these parts were made and how you create an air cast for immobilising limbs, then we looked at who makes these things, and it turned out that very few people make the quality of product that is necessary. This wasn’t like making the kind of air mattress that floats around in your pool, those kinds of products are very cheap and they don’t hold air and they’re not durable. So what we had to do was to go to a level of manufacturing that is sophisticated like the car industry with airbags, and the medical industry with blood bags and air casts.
Q: What did they cost when the first Pump came out?
A: Well the first bladder we made was about $17 because it was a completely new system, not only for us, not only for the industry, but also for manufacturers.
Q: So the first Pump had a $17 part in its shoe, that must have made the whole shoe expensive?
A: The Basketball shoes at the time were costing about $100, and when you included the pump, it went up to $170 because it was a whole new technology threshold. It brought the athletic shoe into more of an equipment realm as opposed to just a sneaker.
Q: How do you go from fire-fighting to Reebok?
A:. I had finished a Master’s Degree and started working on a PHD in Chemistry, and I got an opportunity to do some research in Scotland on performance with athletic footwear. When I came back, I got an opportunity to work at Reebok, so I took that. Reebok was a really small company at the time, and I happened to get lucky and got involved and started working on it. Because of my background in chemistry I was pretty familiar with chemicals and in resins and materials, I just started working on applying both what I knew about physiology, and what I knew about foot shapes and materials made with new technologies.
Q: Did any of those technologies relate to the Pump?
A: We had a couple. There was the energy endurance system, Hexalite and a thing called Graphalite and this was back during the hey day of the athletic footwear realm. Reebok in the late ‘80’s had gone past Nike and was number 1 in the World as far as volume goes.
Q: Were consumers buying a lot of product back then?
A: People didn’t have iPods, they weren’t buying cell phones and they weren’t buying many electronics so sneakers and athletic shoes were what kids bought. People were buying tonnes of products, and it was a race to invent and create new things.
Q: We’ve heard where the Pump came from, but fundamentally what is the Pump that’s in the shoe now - what is it exactly?
A: The Pump now is actually two layers of film that are welded together and it creates a hollow space. If you imagine a potato chip bag which is sealed at both ends, it gives you a kind of balloon. The Pump is a very sophisticated version of that, and it is welded in various areas to create different amounts of hollow space and some amounts of restriction, all of which is designed to be contoured around the foot. We created a number of different bladder shapes, and a number of different Pump shapes that address different functional attributes to create different categories – like basketball and running.
Q: When did you launch the first Pump then?
A: We ended up with some of our first samples that we had done, back in late 1988 and early 1989, and took them to a show called The Atlanta Super Show.
Q: What is the Atlanta Super Show?
A: It was a huge trade show in Atlanta, and it was a benchmark of what was going to be shown over the next 12 to 15 to 18 months at retail, and it was kind of a sneak peek into the future for media too. We ended up showing this shoe at the time which was called the Pro Pump and a shoe called the Pump Shot. What was interesting about these two shoes is that they were the foundation for a lot of our work in the future. They actually had a pump on the heel and release mechanism, and the bladder went around the whole foot.
Q: Who else was at the Super Show?
A: The Nike booth was right down the aisle from us and at the exact same time they were showing their very sophisticated shoe called Air Pressure. It had an off board pump that you held, and a bladder mechanism in a butterfly shape at the top of the ankle. The Nike shoe was finished and it looked great all displayed behind glass - with a kind of aura about it!. We had our shoe in this secret room where people could try on the Reebok product, so there was quite a buzz about it. Paul Fireman, who owned Reebok at the time was ecstatic. He was so excited about it because he thought ours were great.
Q: What happened after the Super Show?
A: After the show there ended up being a lot of momentum and enthusiasm at Reebok and Paul Fireman made an absolute statement that we were going to have these shoes out during the next holiday period, which was in about 9-10 months, so it launched in 1989 to consumers too.
Q: The Pump started in the Reebok Basketball range, and then you went to all these different sports, did you work with any athletes like in tennis or running or anything like that? And how has the pump changed when it goes from sport to sport?
A: Yes, we had the opportunity to work with all the Reebok contracted athletes, in basketball: Dominique Wilkins, Dennis Rodman, and of course people like Michael Chang in tennis. What we did for basketball was that people didn’t like the support – but they liked the fit, so we ended up taking the tongue bladder and changing the shape so that the tongue itself became a fit device and we did that for basketball. For tennis we changed it to become more of a mid-foot bladder, which is intended to create support stability for a lot of a lot of toe dragging, a lot of stops, and a lot of functional needs that tennis players have. Michael Chang loved the Pump, and he was a great person to throw different prototypes to and undertake development with. He was at such a level in his game that we knew that if we could satisfy his needs we could create a tennis shoe that would certainly satisfy a recreational player as well. Every category had its own unique needs and the bladder shapes would change based on what features and benefits you wanted to provide.
Q: Now it’s 20 years later from the original Pump, Reebok still sell Pumps. For somebody that’s constantly working on new technology, is seeing stuff that’s 20 years old that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
A: It’s a good thing, seeing the Pump being sold for 20 years is great, except for the fact that it makes you feel really old! But it’s a compliment, clearly to the Reebok brand and to the product line, but it’s also a little bit of a challenge for us to recreate this and make it exciting. I think there’s an opportunity and a customer base out there, not only from a retro perspective, looking at these classic shoes and saying ‘hey, that’s cool’ but also ‘so what do we do next?’
Q: So do you think there’s going to be another 20 years in Pump?
A: I hope so, I’m not sure, but I do think that we have new horizons to achieve in Pump, and I think the opportunity for us is to stay fresh. We have some pretty exciting Pump platforms that we’re creating right now on the advanced side; we’re just almost on the threshold of readying to introduce it to people and it’s really exciting, and I’m hoping that it will bring on a whole new renaissance of stuff like the pump and custom fit and customisation in footwear.
A: Yes, when I was on the scene trying to stabilise a limb, or help somebody in shock, we used inflatable cast systems that help to immobilise limbs.
Q: So some of the inspiration came from the medical industry - but Reebok use it for fitness… how did you get there?
A: We looked at how these parts were made and how you create an air cast for immobilising limbs, then we looked at who makes these things, and it turned out that very few people make the quality of product that is necessary. This wasn’t like making the kind of air mattress that floats around in your pool, those kinds of products are very cheap and they don’t hold air and they’re not durable. So what we had to do was to go to a level of manufacturing that is sophisticated like the car industry with airbags, and the medical industry with blood bags and air casts.
Q: What did they cost when the first Pump came out?
A: Well the first bladder we made was about $17 because it was a completely new system, not only for us, not only for the industry, but also for manufacturers.
Q: So the first Pump had a $17 part in its shoe, that must have made the whole shoe expensive?
A: The Basketball shoes at the time were costing about $100, and when you included the pump, it went up to $170 because it was a whole new technology threshold. It brought the athletic shoe into more of an equipment realm as opposed to just a sneaker.
Q: How do you go from fire-fighting to Reebok?
A:. I had finished a Master’s Degree and started working on a PHD in Chemistry, and I got an opportunity to do some research in Scotland on performance with athletic footwear. When I came back, I got an opportunity to work at Reebok, so I took that. Reebok was a really small company at the time, and I happened to get lucky and got involved and started working on it. Because of my background in chemistry I was pretty familiar with chemicals and in resins and materials, I just started working on applying both what I knew about physiology, and what I knew about foot shapes and materials made with new technologies.
Q: Did any of those technologies relate to the Pump?
A: We had a couple. There was the energy endurance system, Hexalite and a thing called Graphalite and this was back during the hey day of the athletic footwear realm. Reebok in the late ‘80’s had gone past Nike and was number 1 in the World as far as volume goes.
Q: Were consumers buying a lot of product back then?
A: People didn’t have iPods, they weren’t buying cell phones and they weren’t buying many electronics so sneakers and athletic shoes were what kids bought. People were buying tonnes of products, and it was a race to invent and create new things.
Q: We’ve heard where the Pump came from, but fundamentally what is the Pump that’s in the shoe now - what is it exactly?
A: The Pump now is actually two layers of film that are welded together and it creates a hollow space. If you imagine a potato chip bag which is sealed at both ends, it gives you a kind of balloon. The Pump is a very sophisticated version of that, and it is welded in various areas to create different amounts of hollow space and some amounts of restriction, all of which is designed to be contoured around the foot. We created a number of different bladder shapes, and a number of different Pump shapes that address different functional attributes to create different categories – like basketball and running.
Q: When did you launch the first Pump then?
A: We ended up with some of our first samples that we had done, back in late 1988 and early 1989, and took them to a show called The Atlanta Super Show.
Q: What is the Atlanta Super Show?
A: It was a huge trade show in Atlanta, and it was a benchmark of what was going to be shown over the next 12 to 15 to 18 months at retail, and it was kind of a sneak peek into the future for media too. We ended up showing this shoe at the time which was called the Pro Pump and a shoe called the Pump Shot. What was interesting about these two shoes is that they were the foundation for a lot of our work in the future. They actually had a pump on the heel and release mechanism, and the bladder went around the whole foot.
Q: Who else was at the Super Show?
A: The Nike booth was right down the aisle from us and at the exact same time they were showing their very sophisticated shoe called Air Pressure. It had an off board pump that you held, and a bladder mechanism in a butterfly shape at the top of the ankle. The Nike shoe was finished and it looked great all displayed behind glass - with a kind of aura about it!. We had our shoe in this secret room where people could try on the Reebok product, so there was quite a buzz about it. Paul Fireman, who owned Reebok at the time was ecstatic. He was so excited about it because he thought ours were great.
Q: What happened after the Super Show?
A: After the show there ended up being a lot of momentum and enthusiasm at Reebok and Paul Fireman made an absolute statement that we were going to have these shoes out during the next holiday period, which was in about 9-10 months, so it launched in 1989 to consumers too.
Q: The Pump started in the Reebok Basketball range, and then you went to all these different sports, did you work with any athletes like in tennis or running or anything like that? And how has the pump changed when it goes from sport to sport?
A: Yes, we had the opportunity to work with all the Reebok contracted athletes, in basketball: Dominique Wilkins, Dennis Rodman, and of course people like Michael Chang in tennis. What we did for basketball was that people didn’t like the support – but they liked the fit, so we ended up taking the tongue bladder and changing the shape so that the tongue itself became a fit device and we did that for basketball. For tennis we changed it to become more of a mid-foot bladder, which is intended to create support stability for a lot of a lot of toe dragging, a lot of stops, and a lot of functional needs that tennis players have. Michael Chang loved the Pump, and he was a great person to throw different prototypes to and undertake development with. He was at such a level in his game that we knew that if we could satisfy his needs we could create a tennis shoe that would certainly satisfy a recreational player as well. Every category had its own unique needs and the bladder shapes would change based on what features and benefits you wanted to provide.
Q: Now it’s 20 years later from the original Pump, Reebok still sell Pumps. For somebody that’s constantly working on new technology, is seeing stuff that’s 20 years old that’s a good thing or a bad thing?
A: It’s a good thing, seeing the Pump being sold for 20 years is great, except for the fact that it makes you feel really old! But it’s a compliment, clearly to the Reebok brand and to the product line, but it’s also a little bit of a challenge for us to recreate this and make it exciting. I think there’s an opportunity and a customer base out there, not only from a retro perspective, looking at these classic shoes and saying ‘hey, that’s cool’ but also ‘so what do we do next?’
Q: So do you think there’s going to be another 20 years in Pump?
A: I hope so, I’m not sure, but I do think that we have new horizons to achieve in Pump, and I think the opportunity for us is to stay fresh. We have some pretty exciting Pump platforms that we’re creating right now on the advanced side; we’re just almost on the threshold of readying to introduce it to people and it’s really exciting, and I’m hoping that it will bring on a whole new renaissance of stuff like the pump and custom fit and customisation in footwear.
