Roger Katz said his father and brother formed a balanced partnership.
“My dad was a manufacturing genius. He knew where to make products and source materials,” he said in a telephone interview. “But he didn’t have the concept of marketing. His brother knew how to create a brand and presence.”
But he said they sold the company to Reebok because his father was “old” and his brother was “really dead” and approaching burnout.
In addition to his brother, Mr. Katz has survived by his wife, Dasakats and his child, Lee.
As Katz was thinking of returning to the shoe business, he attended a trade fair in Las Vegas in 2013 and met Werner Wilsh, a former Rockport executive who was preparing to retire.
“He said,’Let’s walk,'” Wilsh said in a telephone interview. “He picked up the shoes here and got the shoes imported from Vietnam and Cambodia. He said:’This is terrible. Let’s do it again. Tell me how to make shoes again. Let me give you.”
Katz quickly launched Samuel Hubbard, and Wyrsch was Senior Vice President of Product Development and Procurement. The company is a sort of Rockport 2.0, which continues to focus on lightweight and casual comfort, but with more luxurious European leather and advanced technology.
Architect Roger Katz, who designed the distribution center for Rockport and its first store in Marlborough, Massachusetts, said he wasn’t surprised that his brother returned to the shoe industry.
“Bruce tried a lot of effort in the meantime, but frankly he didn’t get the type of success he wanted,” he said. “He has reached a point where he wants another real success. He openly talked about the fact that shoes were the only place he really succeeded.”
