Fortress Vision - March 2010

the

V ision March, 2010

Welcome to the new Fortress Eyewear Newsletter! This is where you will see our Vision of what it going on in The Fort Family. So far, I am the

The Vision

newest addition to this amazing family! I just hopped on board last month

March, 2010 .............................

and am loving it. I came to Fortress through Cathy Fox, their wonderful,

Whats Hot................2 New Stores...............3 Opportunity Knocks...4 New Reps.................5 Featured...................6 Contest.....................7 Press........................8

Design (LCAD) in Laguna Beach, my major is Graphic Design. School and

accountant. I currently am going to art school at Laguna College of Art and Fortress definitely keep me busy. My vision is to bring Fortress some fresh ideas to benefit them and you as well! This last month we have spread our Vision to many new stores and have added some more members to the ever growing family. Our sales contest is about to come to a close so get your orders in! You can check out the winners and info in the midst of this newsletter as well as catch up on whats new in the Family read some awesome success stories. If you have schedules of any events that are happening in your area that Fortress can sponsor, I’m here to support you on that and we would love any info for the website and upcoming newsletters. I am super excited to be apart of this Family and can’t wait to work with you soon!

Blessings, Laura Mae

1

Whats Hot Crush Eyewear The Bold and Beautiful is a sculpted two layer beveled oval frame with a gradient lens. Big glasses are still a very popular style amongst the girls fashion.

The Bold and Beautiful come in Black With Baby Blue, Black With Forest Green, Black With Smoke (shown), Brown With Cream & Demi.

Bold & Beautiful

The Capri is a Vintage inspired butterfly window pane shape. The honey tortoise frame and gradient lens bring back the vintage look. The Capri’s come in Honey Tort (Shown), Black, Pink, Transparent Green, Transparent Lemon, and White.

Men’s Kreed Shirts now available in various colors including Heather Capri Grey, Tan, Off White, Royal Blue, Red, Brown, Rust and Black.

Kreed Eyewear

LTD 5

Mega Fortress

The LTD 5 is an Ed Stout #1 frame. It has a large boxed frame and a recessed gun metal K logo with black lanquer. The hand polished and hand constructed frame is perfectly sculpted for any face. This is a Polarized frame and comes in Black (shown), Black Mat and Demi.

The Mega Fortress is a legendary aviator wireframe with a polarized lens. This popular aviator frame comes in black where the Super Fortress frame comes with a new color in gun metal with amber brown lens.

Women’s Crush Shirts now available in various colors including White, Light Yellow, Light Blue and Baby Pink.

2

New Stores BC Surf and Sport, FL January 2010 also saw a full blitz sales tour across the USA with Sean and Mark meeting Robert Belitsky, Joe Surbaugh, Dennis Hack, Pete and Billy Linsmayer, and Gary Clayton in Florida for the Surf Expo and an East Coast sales trip. After the Surf Expo show, Mark and Sean headed straight to Miami to meet up with “The Miraculous One” Robert Belitsky to start selling. Day three of the sales trip started in Fort Lauderdale with Mr. Belitsky hitting a home run and getting BC Surf and Sport, the best surf shop in South Florida open with a 102 unit display loaded with Crush and Kreed! The crew in the warehouse did a awesome job getting the shipment out and Mr. Belitsky was at the store to set up the display and product. We are up and selling for 2010 in BC Surf and Sport, Awesome job Mr. Belitsky! The Miraculous one lives up to his namesake!

Sports Authority The really Big news for the start of 2010 on the Fortress Group sales front is the opening of Sports Authority by our super agent in Colorado, Scott Loeppert! After a sales trip to Main Street Huntington Beach, California, the head honcho’s at Sports Authority recognized the uniqueness of the Crush and Kreed sunglass brands and styling in our HB stores like Jack’s Surfboards and Diane’s Swimwear and the great product range and merchandising in these stores (thanks to Jason Bickley and Mark Fitzgerald). Sports Authority knew that they were missing sales by not having Crush and Kreed in their stores! One call is all it took before Scott had a meeting booked with Sports Authority and the result was our brand in all 5 Sports Authority stores in Hawaii and also the Dillon store in Colorado. Scott works very closely with Sports Authority and should almost have his own office at their HQ! Next step is more great Sports Authority stores to be added to the Crush and Kreed store network throughout the USA! Props also go to David Liu for doing an awesome job on the setup and merchandising of the Hawaii stores! Lets keep the ball rolling!

Sports Authority Waipahu , HI Sports Authority Kapolei , HI

3

Opportunity Knocks Spyder Surfboards Hermosa Beach, CA What is the one thing that seems to be common among the best surf, snow, and specialty stores throughout the USA? Simple.

These stores now recognize Crush and Kreed Eyewear as moderate priced brands. Word is getting out that we are among the best sunglass “top cash performers” with great styles at a “value” price that does not take sales away from their more expensive brands and adds “new” sales to their cash register!

Spyder Surfboards in Hermosa Beach and T&C Surfshops in Hawaii have to be one of the toughest specialty store customers.

So Cal reps, Jason Bickley and Mark Fitzgerald grabbed the opportunity and expanded the business at Spyder Surfboards by filling up an open case and putting up great Crush imaging on the display. David Liu, our man in Hawaii, opened the T&C Surf Shop with a full display 102 unit display of Crush and Kreed. They are currently turning a towers worth of product every month! The secret is, Never Give Up! Amazing Product, Great Sales and Wonderful Service.

Val Surf North Hollywood, CA The Val Surf Empire has been around since 1962.

Mark Richards, the coowner of Val Surf and President has been in the surf business since the shop opened. Crush and Kreed Eyewear have added a great component to Val Surf’s eyewear lineup and added tons to their sunglass business.

Jason Bickley and Mark Fitzgerald were also able to add another Kreed LTD polarized display by setting up an appointment with Mark Richards and going over the key retail components. Awesome work guys!

Sunglass Corner Oceanside, CA Sunglass Corner is a high end sunglass store in Oceansie, CA that has been carrying our product in a closed case for over a year now. David Gross stepped it up with them and now we have an entire case full of Crush and Kreed eyewear! Way to keep the great customer service going David!

4

New Reps

Eamon O’Callaghan Crush, Kreed & Vortex Eyewear welcomes Eamon O’Callaghan to the Fortress Family! Young gun Eamon O’Callaghan, our new rep from Corpus Christi, Texas officially launched into full rep rock star status in February with a 5 day sales blitz starting in Houston and working down to South Padre Island. Eamon had a record week on the road and opened just about every store he and Mark visited! “Work your plan, plan your work!”

Outstanding job!

Terry and Vicki Pearson Crush, Kreed & Vortex Eyewear’s newest rep duo from Michigan, Terry and Vicki Pearson. Terry and Vicki are currently at their local rep shows introducing Crush, Kreed & Vortex Eyewear to a territory that is relatively new to our eyewear programs. They are the set and ready to go for Spring business.

Brian Snelson If there is one guy who knows the eyewear business, its Brian Snelson! Brian took over the Northwest territory for Crush, Kreed & Vortex Eyewear toward the end of last year and is already out of the gates and ready to get the sales job done!

Brian is a veteran of the eyewear industry and just finished up a week at the WWSRA show in Seattle and on the road with Mark getting the shops ready for a great spring.

Brian has also opened some great new accounts in Washington and is heading south to Oregon to do the same.

Chino and Javiera Martinez Crush, Kreed & Vortex Eyewear go International! We would like to welcome our newest members to the Fortress Family, Chino and Javiera Martinez along with their beautiful daughter Sol. They were in town to meet with Mark and Sean regarding the programs Fortress offers and starting distribution of our eyewear in Chili, South America. We welcome them to the family and look forward to coming down to do a shop tour, set the eyewear pace in Chili and take a side expedition snowboarding and skiing in lovely Chili, South America!

5

Featured Lindsay Sawyer Lindsay is a very important asset to the Fortress Family.

Her excellent customer service is something we all should strive to be like.

Lindsay got a couple of wonderful responses from customers as a result of her “Mega Quality Customer CARE!” Her main roles right now are invoicing, maintaining the website, processing warranties, customer service, and working with Sean on product.

Her Crushes she is rocking right now usually are a Lindsay, The Mod, or the Rockette with her absolute favorite being the Rockette or the Joy, “Insanely large glasses are my thing. :)” Lindsay loves “the fact that Mark and Sean trust me enough to leave me alone to regulate when they are gone” and that “ Everyone here is like family to me, which makes coming to work not so bad. I love that our customers are overall very happy with our product and the service they receive as well, which makes my job much, much easier!”

Cathy Fox Cathy is a huge asset to our Fortress Family. She is the jack of all trades, Accounts Receivable Manager, Assistant to VP of Sales Mark Lohrbach and Sean Sullivan, Travel Agent, Administrative Assistant. Pretty much anything you can think of, Cathy is on it! She loves the fun atmosphere of working here at Fortress. Her Crushes she is rocking are usually Kylie and Alexis. Cathy wants you all to know that you are appreciated and that she is here to assist you in all your needs. “Well maybe not all needs but what I can do to help them be successful salesmen.”

Ed “Clyde” Stout Trophy Truck off road racer Ed “Clyde” Stout rocks Kreed eyewear at the Parker 425 off road race in February! He placed 4th in his class at the Parker 425 off road race and 11th overall.

Kreed eyewear is proud to sponsor Ed “Clyde” Stout and his Trophy Truck off road race team as they blast across the Nevada, Arizona, and Baja California deserts in their OC Motorsports Ford truck.

Ed and his team love the fit, style, and finish of the Kreed LTD line. Kreed LTD polarized eyewear is the perfect sunglass for Ed and his team as they spend the day racing and wrenching in the varying light conditions of the desert!

Look for Ed Stout Racing at many of the off road racing events including the upcoming San Felipe Score Baja 250, March 12-14th in San Felipe, Baja California!

6

Contests

Congrats to 1st winner from Florida, Robert Belitsky! He won the contest for January and received a check for $250!

Sales Contest

Congrats to 2nd place winner from Florida, Joe Surbaugh! His winnings was a check for $100.

Congrats to 3rd place winner from California, Regan Wong! His winnings was a check for $50.

This month so far Scott Leoppert is in first, Eamon O’Callahan is in second and Brian Snelson is in third. All three of these reps are fairly new with the company.

Eamon just starting with us in the month of February, is in Texas and he and Mark were opening up stores right and left. Brian Snelson is also new with us as he just started this year and we are very happy to have these new great salespeople with the Fort.

The full contest is for three months, Jan, Feb & March. At the end of the contest the first place prize is $1,000.00, second is $500.00 and third is $250.00. The monthly prizes as you can see above are $250, $100 and $50.

It is anyone’s ball game and some of the newest members of the Fort family are in the top three spots right now! The product sells itself, you just have to get into as many stores as possible.

7

Press Bold and Beautiful, we have found you on the face of Lauren Ashley on a TMZ video http://www.tmz. com/2010/02/24/ miss-beverly-hillsdisowned-by-thecity/#ixzz0gxhJJpYT

Blogs Kreed and Crush now have blogs up! Check them out!

Kreed: http://kreedeyes. blogspot.com/ Crush: http://crusheyes. blogspot.com/ Check for weekly updates on the blogs.

Facebook and Twitter

To better spread the Fortress Vision, we have also expanded over to Facebook and Twitter. With all our social networking we will have our name spread even better! http://www.facebook.com/kreedeyes http://www.facebook.com/crusheyes http://www.twitter.com/kreedeyes http://www.twitter.com/crushsunglasses

Sponsoring Fortress will be sponsoring the 2010 T&C Surf Grom Contest on May 22-23, 2010.

Daine’s Swimwear is going to be setting up a display in their store and Fortress will be sponsoring their Spring Break Promo and Contest.

8