Steve Lee

A leader's perspective: Steve Lee, AbsolutelyNew Manufacturing’s Director of Catalog and Online Retail Sales

Steve Lee is AbsolutelyNew Manufacturing’s Director of Catalog and Online Retail Sales. Steve has over 30 years of experience in the design, development and manufacturing of consumer products for the global market. His specialty has been early-stage product and business development and product branding. Over the years, Steve has negotiated and secured product licensing and product supplying agreements for many worldwide sporting events, including the Olympics. He’s also developed and sold numerous sporting goods and other consumer products to over 80 countries worldwide. He’s also served as an Executive Officer and on the Board of Directors of numerous U.S. companies and civic organizations.

Q: What inspired you to join the team at AbsolutelyNew Manufacturing?

Steve: I was totally excited about the opportunity of working with AbsolutelyNew’s creative minds, industry leaders, pioneers and developers of some of America’s greatest icon companies and products. Each person I spoke with at AbsolutelyNew revealed and showed a love, drive and passion for creating great products and bringing them to the world marketplace. To be able to work with such creative, positive and energetic individuals is what every inventor/entrepreneur dreams about. This is a very exciting opportunity.

Q: You come with a wealth of knowledge and experience regarding consumer goods. How did you get started?

Steve: Back in the early 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, Santa Clara County, CA was a hot bed for new, innovative technology-driven companies. You couldn’t help but want to learn and be a part of that excitement and growth.

I and a few other world-class and national-level swimmers and water-polo players created the first water polo cap protective ear guard and the competitive-swimming sprint goggle. We started out as a plastic injection and foam manufacturer of sports-training accessories for competitive swimming and water polo. Within three years we had created 23 products, of which we had 8 U.S. and worldwide patents. We also became the official supplier of swimming and water-polo accessories to the Olympic Games in 1976, 1980, and 1984. The 1980 Olympic Games was a big year for us (we were kids in our mid-20’s), and we became the exclusive supplier of 15 products that we designed and manufactured for 78 countries, beating out at the time such brand names as Speedo, Diana, and Arena.

By this time, we were also designing and manufacturing swimwear, running, exercise and bicycling apparel under our own brand name. We were also producing private-label products for upcoming brand names, such as Nike, Patagonia, Beachcomber Bill’s, Surf Wear Hawaii, O’Neill and many others. We were surrounded by creative minds; you couldn’t help but learn the trade and how products are brought to market. As the running craze of the late 70’s and early 80’s took off, I teamed up with two other gentlemen that helped propel the use of Gore-Tex in running apparel, which took road-running training into a whole new direction.

I continued with the development of three new companies that focused on major league baseball and softball products, as well as those little foam body boards that people use to ride ocean waves. We were a diverse foam manufacturer that supplied foam cores to Morey Boogie Boards and produced our own brand name of body boards under the BZ and Sentinel Brands. We also produced body boards and foam exercise mats under the Wilson Sporting Goods brand name.

By the mid-90’s, after an eight-year hiatus, I hopped back into developing a wide range of goods, from hand-held paging products (Motorola), to developing shoe-accessory products that were endorsed by 14 branded shoe manufacturers and sold to over 80 countries worldwide.

Q: Any memorable experiences or stories you care to share?

Steve: I think of one product that I get a kick out of. We challenged the rules of the competitive-swimming market and introduced a rather controversial swimsuit design at the Women’s National AIAW Swimming Championships in Austin, Texas. We had the women from Stanford University wear our suits and they went 8 seconds under the American Record in the 200-yard medley relay. Our suit was a big hit and got featured in Sports Illustrated.

Q: What’s the one piece of advice you have for inventors?

Steve: Now that you have the patent… do something with it. Don’t just create and waste time and money on something that you are not going to do anything with. Who wants a framed patent that just sits on a wall and all you do is stare at it? Push forward, align yourself with people that can help you make your dream product a reality.

Q: Lastly, we always ask, what is your favorite invention of all time, and why?

Steve: Wow, there has been so many. I guess the products that stick out the most are those that changed and enriched people’s lives and were products that pioneered new technologies and categories for retail. Examples would be the competitive-swimming goggle; the water polo cap protective ear guard; water-repellant textiles for apparel; foam body boards, and a few others. They’re products that allowed people to do what they weren’t able to do in the past.