World Economic

In sports, timing is the difference between a score and miscue. For a trio of graduates from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, the same has been true in business.

Founded four years ago by Ken Harris, Aaron Brookhart and Brandon Hefer, Fred Sparks Design has produced the blueprints for more than 100 sports equipment products. The firm, bearing a fictitious name created by the three founders, has received national recognition for the helmets worn by the women’s U.S. Olympic softball team and NFL stars.

What started as a fledgling design firm in a rented house in Belleville has grown into a posh studio in south St. Louis.

It has Schutt Sports Inc. to thank. In 2004, Litchfield, Ill.-based Schutt — credited with making the first steel facemask for football helmets in the 1930s — was looking for fresh ideas. So the company signed a deal with the three young designers.

Working with such a young firm was a risk but a measured one. Schutt was familiar with Harris, Brookhart and Hefer; they had worked on a class project the company sponsored in 2003 at SIUC. The company got an even better sense of the team’s potential when Harris interned at Schutt.

"It was the right people and right place at the right time," Harris said about the origins of the partnership.

Schutt, which has about $65 million in annual sales, keeps Fred Sparks’ designers busy, with more than 20 projects a year on average. Most of the jobs call for designers to improve existing equipment — make it lighter, make it work and look better.

Products born from the relationship include catchers’ gear for female softball players, which has helped Schutt remain one of the most popular brands in women’s softball.

Fred Sparks’ design process starts with field research. Athletes are interviewed. Prototypes are tested.

It is the design team’s job to draw ideas from athletes who don’t always think there’s a problem with their equipment, said Ken Nimmons, executive vice president of new product development for Schutt. However, in the case of the women’s catchers’ gear, the problem was simple. No one had ever asked women how to design the gear for a female body.

The designers "have a good sense of stepping back from a situation, evaluating and saying, ‘What if we did it this way?’" Nimmons said easy fast cash. "Sometimes we can become so close to a product line that we can’t see opportunities to improve it."

In the case of the catchers’ gear for women, the improvements included a chest protector better suited for guarding a female torso against a softball, as opposed to the smaller baseball. Other advances include the use of Velcro to strap the chest protector behind the shoulders as opposed to the traditional model, which connects with buckles and must be put on over the head.

The inspiration for their designs don’t necessarily come from the world of sports, Brookhart said.

"Watches, cars, you could really focus on anything and pull some elements of what it is you like about that object," Brookhart said. "Is it just the color? The form or shape? You start pinpointing and breaking those things down, and you start realizing what is making people like this and you start trying to create your variation of that."

For the world of football, the firm has helped Schutt design facemasks that resemble the jaws of a bulldog. At the request of NFL superstar running back LaDainian Tomlinson, Fred Sparks produced a helmet that resembles the mask of "Star Wars" villain Darth Vader. The company also has designed Web pages and marketing graphics for Schutt.

The work Fred Sparks gets from Schutt has allowed the firm to expand to seven total employees, including a chief operating officer who was recently hired to help the firm find opportunities outside the sporting arena. Already, Fred Sparks has worked with a few companies outside the sporting goods industry, including Utah-based luggage maker Ogio.

As for the future, the designers hope to brand themselves as a firm that designs products that not only protect people, but also the environment, Brookhart said.

"It’s kind of our goal, as American designers, to focus on the environment when making things better, rather than making it just to make it," Hefer said.

cboyce@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8345

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