Brice Wallace
A globally recognized sporting goods company is deepening its roots in Ogden.
Amer Sports Winter & Outdoor Co., which has had operations in Ogden since 2007, will expand its headquarters for its U.S. outdoor business and build a distribution center. The announcement followed the company being approved for a tax credit incentive by the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board at the group’s December meeting.
The $32 million project is expected to result in 155 new jobs over the next decade, with the jobs paying an average of $42,500 a year.
“We have built a partnership with the city of Ogden, Weber County and the state of Utah and are excited to announce the expansion of our operations,” Bill Kirchner, vice president and general manager of Amer Sports Americas, said in a prepared statement. “Our brands play an integral role in the outdoor and winter sports community by inspiring consumers to live active and healthy lifestyles. We value the unique opportunity Utah provides us to engage with skiers, snowboarders, runners, bikers and hikers and are proud to call Utah our home.”
Amer Sports Winter & Outdoor’s parent company, Amer Sports, is based in Finland and offers sports equipment, footwear and apparel. It has sales offices in about three dozen countries. Its brands include Salomon, Arc’teryx, Peak Performance, Atomic, Mavic, Suunto, Wilson, Precor, ENVE Composites and Louisville Slugger.
“The interesting thing about Amer Sports [is] probably the users, the buyers of their sporting goods, have no idea who Amer Sports is,” said Mel Lavitt, chairman of the GOED board’s incentives committee. “They do know names like Salomon, Wilson, Atomic, Mavic, Suunto and Precor. They have great brands, and we’re very excited to have them here.”
The company’s incentive is in the form of a tax credit of $1.3 million and an Industrial Assistance Fund employee retention grant of $2,000 per retained employee, up to $300,000. The Ogden expansion is expected to result in new wages totaling $43.6 million over 10 years and new state tax revenues of nearly $6.6 million during that period.
“We think this is a really exciting opportunity for not just Ogden and Weber County and northern Utah, but really all of Utah in the outdoor recreation industry that we have here,” said Thomas Wadsworth, GOED’s business development and corporate incentives manager.
“For Amer Sports in particular, a lot of our growth has centered around the outdoor business and specifically around direct-to-consumer and our soft-goods business, and that will be a hub within the state that we’re looking to move forward,” Ron Ostrowski, the company'svice president of finance and operations, told the GOED board. “So, we’ll ship and distribute all of that product out of the proposed warehouse that we’re working on, and all of the sales and marketing efforts and digital efforts and all of that type of stuff will also expand within the current footprint that we have in the Ogden office.”
Jerry Oldroyd, chairman of the GOED board, said Amer Sports came to Ogden at a time when GOED was trying to develop the state’s outdoor products segment and Ogden was trying to become an outdoor industry hub.
“It was a godsend, is what it was,” Oldroyd said. “It was exactly the type of company the state was looking for to serve as a cornerstone to that whole industry now since you’ve been here. So, to have you expand in Utah is, I think, tremendous.”
Ogden Mayor Mike Caldwell said “people thought we were a little crazy” to try to rebrand what he described as “this kind of a busted railroad town” into an outdoor industry center. Amer put operations in the city and other companies soon followed, with Ogden now serving as the base for 40 brands, he said.
“Denver really wanted these guys. Reno really wanted these guys,” Caldwell said of Amer. “A lot of people wanted this international brand to be a part of their community. … I think it’s really important for the state, it’s certainly important for our local community, and we really appreciate all of the work that’s gone into this.”
Tom Adams, director of GOED’s Office of Outdoor Recreation, said the Amer expansion project has been in the works for about 1 1/2 years.
“What we need to keep in mind as a board and as GOED is there is a lot of consolidation in the outdoor industry these days, and over the years we’ve seen lots of brands fall under one umbrella, and lots of states are gaming to keep these umbrella companies like Amer in their home court,” Adams said.
Amer’s brands, he added, “aren’t just household names in Utah or the U.S. These are global household names that bring global recognition to Ogden and all of the efforts that Mayor Caldwell and his team have put forth.”