Made in the Midlands: Blazer Manufacturing

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COLUMBUS, Neb. — The name on the track hurdles and the starting blocks and the big white building they're made in was supposed to be Blaser — the same as the man who started making athletic equipment in his garage nearly 40 years ago.

Thanks to an attorney's mistake on the legal papers, all of it says something else: Blazer.

Not that Gordon Blaser is complaining.

The company that began as a one-man operation is now a big player in the high school and college athletics market. It supplies schools in all 50 states and a couple of foreign countries —and in one case, the Olympic Games — with Nebraska-made pole vault pits, shot put rings, relay batons and a catalog full of other types of equipment for track, volleyball and football, among other sports.

And Blazer Manufacturing is more than just athletics; in the same plant in Columbus, workers make oil storage containers and machine parts for several major companies.

Blaser, the company's general manager, said he has embraced the Blazer name — even if it's not the most well-known of the many manufacturing companies in town.

"We're the best-kept secret in Columbus," he said.

Blazer began with a single product: hurdles.

In the early years, Blaser, who had worked in manufacturing for years, handled all of the production work himself. He linked up with a salesman and began getting his name out to schools and colleges. It didn't take long before he had to move the operation out of his home. By the late 1970s, he was in the company's current location, on the west end of the city.

Over the years, the facility was expanded several times to accommodate more products and more workers. Today, it covers about 28,000 square feet, including production areas for the sports gear and industrial materials, added to the company's offerings about two decades ago. A second office, in Fremont, is the hub for sales.

Blazer imports some products from elsewhere in the U.S. and foreign countries, but the majority of its line is made in Columbus. Track equipment is the biggest part of the sports business and hurdles are the biggest seller. Last year, the company produced somewhere between 14,000 and 15,000 of them.

In addition to schools around the country — Texas is a particularly big market — several local track teams use Blazer equipment. Watch a track meet in Columbus or Elkhorn or Bennington, and you're likely to see Blazer products.

Most of the sports equipment is made on specially designed machines. The hurdles are typically silk-screened with the names and logos of schools, a favorite task for employee Randy Hanson, who has been at Blazer for five years.

Hanson works on all stages of the hurdle-making process, starting with a straight piece of metal tubing. He adds weight, bends the metal, sticks on the end pieces and then gets to work on the logo. When he really gets rolling, he said, he can do a couple hundred in a day.

Traveling with his son to out-of-town sports events, Hanson said he looks for products he might have made. "I've been to other places that have our hurdles, and that's always neat to see," he said.

About 20 people work in the Columbus plant, down from a high of 30 a decade or so ago. The decline isn't about a downturn in business: Even during the recession, Blaser said, business was good enough to keep employees working overtime.

It's about technology and machines that proved to be more efficient than people.

On a tour of the plant, Blaser watched an employee punch a few numbers into a computer before a machine began stamping dozens of holes into a sheet of metal — a piece for one of the company's newest products, an inflatable high jump landing system called the Inflate & Go. Years ago, each hole would have been individually stamped by a metalworker.

"I get a kick out of watching this, myself," Blaser said. "I think of how we used to do it."

The last few years weren't without bad news. The people at Blazer said it was clear schools were pinching pennies and holding off on replacing their equipment.

But a drop in sales on the athletic side of the operation — which accounts for about 60 percent of Blazer's business — was offset by steady orders from industrial clients. Large oil storage tanks bring in the most revenue, but the company makes several other types of products. Many of them are custom-made steel parts for agricultural equipment.

Unlike the athletic equipment, most of the industrial products are distributed within the Midwest.

Back on the sports side, operations manager Kirk Diers said things are starting to pick up — and schools seem more interested in the higher-end equipment.

"A lot of the schools are starting to buy a quality product," he said. "When they get the money, they don't want to buy it twice."

In some cases, the decision is between something made in China or something made in Columbus.

Competition from international firms has become more of an issue over the last couple of decades, Blaser said. But there are also a handful of other U.S. companies vying for the relatively small school athletic market, so Blazer works hard to stand out.

Diers and Blaser said they pick up many customers by attending trade shows across the country. The company also works with big sports retailers, like Scheels and Dick's Sporting Goods, which deal directly with clients.

Blaser said he's not overly worried about foreign competitors taking over the market — and he's never thought about moving the company away from Columbus. The workers he's found there, he said, have been the main contributor to the company's success.

At 74, Blaser has no plans to step down.

"It's been good," he said. "I guess if I could go back and do it over again, I don't know what I'd change."

Contact the writer: 402-444-1543, erin.golden@owh.com

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