Oboz Establishes Portland Design and Development Office and Adds Brad Long and Seth Brown to Product Creation Team

(Bozeman, Montana)— Oboz Footwear, the True to the Trail™ outdoor footwear company located in Bozeman, Montana announced today that it has opened a Product Design and Development office based in Portland, Oregon. In addition to establishing the Portland location, the company has added two new team members to its product creation team—Brad Long as Director of Product and Seth Brown as Senior Product Developer. Long and Brown join Portland-based Chuck Roth, Design Director and Derek Gustafson, who works from Oboz’ Bozeman headquarters as the Product Development Manager.

John Connelly, President and Founder of Oboz, said “We are pleased to welcome Brad and Seth aboard to amp up Oboz’ future product lines. Our rapid growth in recent years has made it clear that additional resources and talent were needed as we look ahead. Brad, Seth and a Portland product center offer that. I’m very excited to have the opportunity to work with such collaborative, visionary and experienced professionals to accomplish our strategic footwear initiatives,” said Connelly.

Brad Long, who will lead the team, has over thirty-five years experience in athletic and outdoor footwear development, engineering and project management, much of it from a long tenure with Nike. His extensive background includes product innovation, product line management, testing, merchandising and marketing and product engineering. He is fully proficient in footwear construction methods and technologies from extensive time gained from working with manufacturers in Korea, Taiwan, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Italy. Long has been awarded with two Industrial Designer Society of America awards for his accomplishments, as well as two Nike Milestone awards recognizing his exceptional contributions to the company.

Seth Brown most recently was the Director of Asia Footwear Product Development for VF Timberland, where he led product creation teams and partners to deliver on-time and accurate products from concept through development and commercialization. In that role, Brown had oversight of a staff of forty-five in China and Vietnam in eleven development centers that managed over three hundred new projects per season. In his thirty years in the footwear, accessories and apparel industry, he has held positions with Nike, adidas, Scott USA and other high profile footwear companies. Additionally, he has worked with over seventy different footwear manufacturers in six different countries.

Oboz added a Portland location to “give us the best of both worlds,” said Connelly. “Our roots are in Bozeman and the surrounding mountains, and Portland adds energy to what we will accomplish in the future.”

Chuck Roth, who co-founded Oboz and has designed its shoes and boots since the company was founded in 2007, explained that “resources in Portland that are second to none as far as footwear. This is where it all happens.”

About Oboz
Oboz (www.obozfootwear.com) creates ‘True to the Trail™’ outdoor footwear inspired by the wild environs surrounding the company’s Bozeman, Montana home. ‘The Oboz’ is a place for exploration, play and work, as well as a state of mind that has deep respect for the area’s rich natural heritage. Oboz shoes—which debuted in stores in 2008—are designed to have meaningful innovation, steadfast performance and recognizable quality and durability. Oboz plants a tree for every pair of shoes it sells through Trees for the Future (www.treesforthefuture.org), an international organization that improves livelihoods in communities around the world through beneficial tree planting.

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