Next Inc announced that it has added Mr. C.W. (Bill) Reed to its Board of Directors.
Mr. Reed brings with him 37 plus years of experience including expertise and skills in Leadership, General Management, Turnarounds, Financial Literacy, Product Development, Marketing, Customer Relationships, Manufacturing Distribution, Worldwide Sales and Procurement, including China, Taiwan, Mexico, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Sweden, South Africa, Japan and the U.S.
From 1994-1999, Reed was President and COO of Escalade Inc where he doubled the size of the office products subsidiary to $30,500,000, remaining consistently profitable.
He reorganized the management of Escalade Sports, sold an unprofitable division, consolidated a Los Angeles facility into a Mexican mequiladora and implemented the financial controls and business measurements necessary to turn operating losses into consistent profitability.
He also created a new sporting goods import division to develop and import new products that generated revenues of over $60,000,000. Mr. Reed was elected a director of Escalade in 1997.
From 1999-2006, Reed was President, CEO and a Director of Escalade Inc, where he developed and carried out a strategy to take on moderate amounts of leverage to supplement organic growth with bite-sized acquisitions and hired the management necessary to support this strategy.
He turned around persistent losses at Escalade, International, a UK-based sporting goods subsidiary, and turned around a European-based acquisition with serious accounting and operating deficiencies.
Overall, net sales doubled again to $185,000,000 with after tax profits of $11,942,000 for 2005. In 2006 net sales toped $200,000,000 with increased profitability.
Escalade was named one of Fortune’s 100 fastest growing companies in 2003, began paying dividends in 2004 and named one of the ten best investments for the last ten years by The Motley Fool in October, 2006, yielding a 33% annualized return for investors.
Robert Budd, Next Inc CEO, stated, “We’re extremely pleased to have added Bill to our Board of Directors. His experience clearly indicates he is a high quality business professional with a track record of adding real value to companies and building long term shareholder value.
Importantly, he lives right here in Wabash near our manufacturing facility, which will allow him to be very involved in the company.”
Next Inc
