Cortland at 100 by Tom Keer originally printed in American Angler

TRADITIONS I

BY TOM KEER

Cortland at 100 2015 is a milestone year for one of the oldest brands in the sport, which coincidentally, didn't begin as a fly-fishing manufacturer at all.

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HE MEN WHO HELPED ME spool the Cortland 333 slow sinking line on to my Pfleuger Medalist 1494 tied their last Albright knots a very long time ago. The era was a few years before Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Min City, back when their hands were nimble and they did not wear reading glasses for detail work.

After attaching the line to the backing, they showed me how to straighten the hank of 30-pound mono I commandeered from my Penn Spin:fisher 700. We tied the mono to the fly line with a nail knot, and a perfection loop on the working end. I mounted the Pfleuger to my Shakespeare Wonderrod and set about to practicing. If you have never cast a Wonderrod, you owe it to yourself to do so.

It will make you appreciate your current graphite sweetheart that much more.

For fly anglers, that era was much simpler than it is today if for no other reason than there were far fewer rod, reel, and line choices. But at the center of it all, was Cortland.

Like a cat, the Cortland Line Company, founded by Ray Smith in 1915, has lived multiple lives. Smith initially purchased ten Number 1 Wardwell braiding machines to create woven silk, cotton, and linen garments. In today's terms, Smith's B2B and B2C channels operated under one umbrella, and his initial company launch was successful.

But Smith was also always on the lookout for emerging markets, and World War I was just the ticket because the As the popularity of the company's 333 fly line series grew, Cortland's display at shows became one of the most frequently visited. Here, Leon Chandler and Eddie Wood man the booth.

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military needed braided lines. Between the need for woven garments, bomb cord, and even parachute cord, military contracts kept the Number 1 Wardwell braiding machines running day and night.

Cortland's profit and loss statement was healthy, but the entrepreneur and visionary wasn't content.

Reinventing the Fly Line 1 AThen our country was not at war, V V we were fishing. At the time, the popularity of recreational angling was growing by leaps and bounds, certainly among conventional :fishing enthusiasts, but also with the emerging new sport of fly fishing.

In the early 1930s, Smith launched a product innovation that would change the face of fly fishing forever, the first tapered fly line-a patented weight-forward

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TRADITIONS design called the Bug Taper. Cortland followed up with a serious research and design effort that took nearly two decades to complete, but the fruit of that labor produced the first PVC-coated fly line, a product that would revolutionize the sport.

Launched in 1953, Cortland's 333 series of lines flew off retailers' shelves.

Cortland upstaged itself with the 444 fly-line series, and then the industry's first high-performance line, the 444 SL in 1979. For years, Cortland was the number one manufacturer and seller of fly lines in the nation, if not the world.

Concurrently, a yow1g man named Leon Chandler joined the company and began a SO-year career that started in the accounting department and ended with his role as Cortland's Vice President of sales. Chandler was a natural advocate for the sport and promoted fly fishing at sportsman's shows, anglers' clubs, and to anglers in foreign countries, most notably in Germany, Finland, Poland and Japan.

Chandler was the national Trout Unlin1ited president for two years, the national president for the American Fishing Tackle Manufacturers Association (AFTMA), and played a key role in the development of the fly line rating system used throughout the industry for the past 40 years.

While Smith was the company's founder, without question, Leon Chandler became the face of Cortland. Under

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Chandler was a natural spokesperson for Cortland (bottom) and even took his repertoire behind then Iron Curtain, where he met two Polish brothers (top). Chandler kept in contact with them for years.

Awoman who wor1<ed at the Cortland factory was Polish and translated their letters for him.

his watchful eye, he deployed innovative sales, marketing, and public relations business practices as well as top flight product. The Cortland Pro Shop concept focused on strategic relationships with brick and mortar路fly shops. Recognizing that fly shop owners helped customers form opinions about products, Chandler

launched dealer-direct marketing and sales programs and wholesale programs that made tackle retailing a viable business. In turn, Cortland's marketing programs, special events, and participation at consumer shows drove customers into those stores. Some dealers still remember filling out customers' contact information on a card and sending the cards to Cortland for a $1 per card rebate.

Building the Brand

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n addition to boutique store sales, Cortland created and deployed private label products that were sold to department stores and manufacturers alike. Montgomery Ward inventoried a Hawthorne brand of braided Cortland lines and the South Bend Company carried a Cortlandmade Oreno line. Demand for these lines was so high, Cortland filled railroad cars to the brim with wooden spools and lines at the company's railroad spur.

Business was great, partly because recreational fishing was America's most popular activity (along with hunting).

In the 1960s, fly fishing gained traction as a viable style of fishing for all anglers, not just America's elite. Another round of expansion for Cortland followed, and the company embarked on several business mergers and acquisitions. Strategic decisions in the 1990s and through the early 2000s resulted in ownership of the WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM

well-known Diamondback rod company, followed by the purchase of the Argentinean reel company, STH. The company acquired Riverborn Flies and the domestic distribution rights for Climax leaders and tippet material. Not only did Cortland emerge as a veritable one-stop shop providing customers and retailers with a suite of hard goods, the company became an international brand.

But the theoretically sound expansion had one fly in the ointment; the timing was off. Dramatic economic shifts that began in the 1980s, mostly in the form of rising competitive brands and the movement to offshore manufacturing, plagued the company. Several key Cortland research and development employees moved away from the organization, effectively moth-balling Cortland's product development. Business practices stalled, sales went in the tank, and the air was out of Cortland's sails. All that was left was the canvas luffing in the wind.

A New Start

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or the most part, Cortland employees have always owned the company they worked for through a stock-ownership program. But as the business' debt climbed close to $3 million, workers decided to sell their shares to a group of investors in 2012.

Were it not for a new investment group comprised of business executives who grew up fishing Cortland products, the company would have likely shuttered.

Their experience ranges from principals and owners of Wall Street and West Coast investment firms, advertising agencies, publishing companies, real estate and energy firms, but they are bound together by the common goal of rebuilding Cortland and have invested in new equipment and people, including U.S. Fly Fishing team member and coach John Wilson, to turn things around.

Though they're not alone in tl1eir optimism-to encourage the company to maintain its headquarters in Cortland, New York, and to make sure it starts it's next 100 years on the right foot, New York state and federal lawn1akers credited the company a $200,000 development package in early 2015. The funds will WWW.AMERICANANGLER.COM

Chandler (right) helped Cortland retain its title as the largest flyline manufacturer in the world for over 40 years.

reportedly help improve manufacturing capabilities and possibly lead to more jobs.

According to one owner, Sandy Douglas, "I appreciate all that Cortland is, but see room for improvement. We would like to see a renewed emphasis on research and development, and a rethinking of sales and marketing. While Cortland has customers in an impressive nun1ber of countries where fishing is prevalent, we must focus on the pro shops and independent dealers domestically that have been ardent supporters for generations.

We will improve our support to them and begin with a stronger website and product delivery system. There are many areas where we can in1prove, but we will start at the customer level. The fishing industry is well served by many strong and respected competitors, and we have to earn business, but Cortland was a leader for many years and there is no reason it can't be again:'

Since the acquisition, Cortland has launched a number of new products like the Liquid Crystal and the Trout Boss fly lines. They've taken advantage of social media platforms and reached out to thousands of anglers world wide, and they reenergized their bootl1 presence at retail fly-fishing shows. Odds are that Cortland's centennial year will be a time for all to pause, reflect on the recent changes, and chart a new path for their second century.

Old men wax philosophically to anyone willing to listen, and I'm sure many decades from now, someone will fondly remember the company's latest-andgreatest fishing lines, much the same way I remember purchasing my first 333. ~

Tom Keer is an outdoor writer and magazine editor. You can see more of his work atwww.tomkeer.com or at www. thekeergroup. com.

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