One of the top-ranked young competitors in the equine sport of eventing, Caroline Martin looked all over for a shampoo that would leave her horse’s coat and mane shiny, but wouldn’t dry out its skin with repeated grooming.
Mane ‘n Tail equine shampoo and conditioner was the only product she could find that worked.
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That’s when the Springfield Township 19-year-old had a thought.
“My scalp would always be dry,” she said. “Mane ‘n Tail works, why not try it on my hair? I sometimes, if I run out of the human product and can’t get to the grocery store, will go to the barn and use the equine product. It doesn’t dry your scalp out, and also it makes your hair extremely shiny and soft.”
That’s the secret behind the crossover success of Straight Arrow Products Inc.
After more than a decade of steady sales growth, the family-owned Bethlehem Township company whose Mane ‘n Tail shampoo and conditioner went from tack-shop staple to salon hair-care secret to a spot on the shelves at Walmart, Target and all three major drug store chains, is in expansion mode.
Straight Arrow, which employs about 70 people at two Bethlehem Township locations developing, manufacturing and shipping its line of personal- and equine-care products, is opening a third site in Forks Township and planning to add 20 to 30 employees. The company will hold a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday at the 110,000-square foot Forks site at 900 Conroy Place.
That’s Phase 1 of the expansion, expected to open in fall 2015. Three other phases that include office space will bring the Forks site to 200,000 square feet in five to 10 years.
The company remains virtually unknown locally, but it’s hoping to change that.
“As we are moving into the new facility, we are going to be in three locations here in the Lehigh Valley with our manufacturing and operations,” company President and CEO Devon Katzev said. “Now it is even more important than ever to let the Valley know we are here.”
Straight Arrow’s expansion has its roots in the big-hair 1980s. That’s when its core product, Mane ‘n Tail shampoo and conditioner, originally intended just for horses, began to cross over into the women’s hair-care market, helped by a healthy dose of word-of-mouth from horse groomers, Katzev said.
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“Women are the main groomers of horses,” he said. “So women would see the results on the horses from using the product, they would see the hair looking beautiful, the manes flowing.”
Pretty soon they were using it on themselves and telling their friends. Along the way, the company got unpaid endorsements from Sarah Jessica Parker and Jennifer Aniston and spots in movies, including “Blades of Glory,” starring Will Ferrell.
But by the mid-1990s, growth overwhelmed the company’s ability to keep up with orders. Katzev’s mother, Bonnie Katzev Sprung, had brought in William R. Dunavant in 1989 as head of sales and marketing. In 1990, she transferred her ownership to Devon Katzev and Dunavant, split 50-50, making Dunavant president.
Things didn’t work out. In 1994, Devon Katzev sued Dunavant for, among other things, paying himself massive bonuses that all but wiped out company profits.
Two years later, a judge ordered Dunavant to repay $4.5 million he had paid himself and removed him from the company. By the end of the year, Katzev was back in sole control of Straight Arrow, but the financial damage had been done. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1997, listing $11.7 million in debt.
It emerged from bankruptcy in 1998 and relaunched its core products.
“As an owner myself, I am very ultra-conservative. I brought in a team and we brought this company back,” Katzev said.
The closely held company doesn’t disclose its financials, or how much it pays its employees, but Katzev said business has nearly doubled in the last four years. He grapples with many of the same issues other corporate leaders deal with, such as how to afford rising health-care costs and manage inventory.
Straight Arrow recently acquired Cowboy Magic, another family-owned company that makes a line of equine hair products, its first acquisition.
It’s a familiar story in the Lehigh Valley, said Don Cunningham, president and CEO of Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp, which helped Straight Arrow secure a $2 million expansion loan through the Pennsylvania Industrial Development Authority.
“A lot of the bedrock of the Lehigh Valley economy are these $10 million to $20 million companies with 50 to 100 employees that are in real growth mode right now, particularly in the manufacturing sector,” he said. “Straight Arrow has been chugging along as an advancing company with little recognition and awareness here because their market is national.”
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The Lehigh Valley’s location within reach of major Northeast markets has made it a prime location for mid-sized manufacturers seeking to grow their businesses. Showing off successful companies like Straight Arrow is a great way to promote the region to prospects.
“Our best tool for attraction is the success of existing companies that are already here,” he said.
The company’s roots are local too, if you consider Warren County, N.J., local. Katzev’s parents, Phillip and Bonnie, started the company in 1970 at the family’s horse farm in Alpha; young Devon helped out by filling bottles with Mane ‘n Tail shampoo after school.
“Those were just single little pumps that we would stick into a drum, and would open this little ball valve on the pump, this little drum pump, and it would just fill the product, one by one,” he said. “All capped by hand, we just screwed the caps on by hand, tighten them up. Box them by hand. Label by hand.”
Today, Straight Arrow has a modern, automated manufacturing facility where machines, overseen by factory workers, fill the bottles. Its products are sold in 100,000 locations and it will add three new lines at its new facility in Forks.
Its product offerings have grown exponentially. It now offers 27 Mane ‘N Tail personal-care products, 14 Mane ‘n Tail equine-care products, three Straight Arrow Therapeutic products, a dozen products in its all-natural Conceived by Nature product line and six Cowboy Magic equine products.
Katzev plans to continue that growth, but in keeping with his conservative approach, he won’t push it beyond what the business will support, and he says he won’t forget its roots.
“All of my customers are important,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s Walmart or it’s going to a tack-and-feed store. We need all these customers. They are all important to help grow the business.”
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