The Herald, Sharon, Pa.

Business

March 19, 2010

Frisbee maker Wham-O looks for new ways to play

EMERYVILLE, Calif. — You never know when a Frisbee or Hacky Sack might come sailing overhead at Wham-O Inc., the company that launched those iconic brands, along with the Slip ’N Slide, the Hula Hoop and the SuperBall. Cubicle dwellers at Emeryville’s Wham-O get used to ducking when exuberant colleagues start doing some hands-on product testing.

These days, the action is coming fast and furious at the venerable toymaker, with a new owner, a push into preschool playthings, an eco-friendly toy material and a sense of overall renaissance.

“Wham-O is a nostalgic brand of America,” said Kyle Aguilar, who bought the company last summer with a group of private investors and now serves as its CEO. “It’s one of the top historic brands, like Coca-Cola and Levi’s. That’s what attracted me to it. But it’s been dormant for a long time; it hasn’t brought any new, jaw-dropping, incredible products to market in the past 10 years.”

Founded in a Pasadena garage in 1948, Wham-O has bounced around much like its SuperBall in the recent past. It spent three years in the mid-’90s as part of toy giant Mattel, was independent for nearly a decade, then in 2006 was purchased by a Hong Kong company.

“They didn’t have much intention to make it grow,” Aguilar said. “You need somebody who has an emotional attachment.”

Aguilar, 29, enjoyed a Southern California boyhood filled with Frisbees and Slip ’N Slides. He brings a background in manufacturing — he owns and runs Manufacturing Marvel Inc., which produces toys and promotional products from plastic, glass, tin, porcelain and other materials at factories in the United States, China and Mexico. Marvel already was making some Wham-O products internationally, but now some Wham-O manufacturing will return to the United States at Marvel factories in Lompoc, Calif. and Michigan.

Privately held Wham-O declined to share financial information, but executives confirmed a published report that its 2005 sales were $80 million; as with most companies, they have since declined along with the economy.

As part of its resurgence, Wham-O in February acquired Sprig Toys Inc., a small Colorado company with an emphasis on eco-friendly preschool toys, for an undisclosed price.

Wham-O will use Sprig’s “green” Sprigwood material in Frisbees, Hula Hoops and other products. Made from recycled plastics such as margarine tubs, yogurt containers and milk jugs — and sawdust reclaimed from sawmills — Sprigwood feels like a slightly heavier plastic with visible flecks of wood and emits the scent of cedar.

Sprig’s nine employees will stay based in Fort Collins, Calif. and design products for the company’s new Wham-O Jr! line for preschoolers.

Like Wham-O, Sprig emphasizes toys that rely on kid power instead of batteries.

For instance, toy trucks feature a self-charging capacitor that a child operates by pumping the vehicle’s back side up and down, producing power to illuminate lights or make sounds.

Besides whipping up toys in-house, Wham-O accepts ideas over the transom.

That’s how the Frisbee came to be. Building inspector Walter “Fred” Morrison (who recently died at age 90) brought his Pluto Platter to the company in the late 1950s.

Renamed and marketed as a brand-new sport, the Frisbee became ubiquitous everywhere from college quads to neighborhood parks; more than 200 million of the flying discs have been sold, making it Wham-O’s best-selling product.

Scripps Howard News Service

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