When members of the U.S. Military Academy's Class of 2018 report on July 2, they'll be issued everything from cadet clothing and toiletries to towels, washcloths and black shoe polish. They also will get a Rochester-made footlocker to store it all in.
Rhino Trunk & Case has wrapped up production of 2,200 trunks for West Point. And the sale to the federal service academy in Orange County marks only the latest big win for the growing company. That work, plus a deal with collegiate e-retailer OCM.com, has the company's sales projected to be up 40 to 50 percent over last year, said Rhino co-owner Eric Vangellow.
Your suitcase, backpack, footlocker or messenger bag almost surely wasn't made in the United States. But the western New York luggage industry is somewhat bucking that trend. Skooba Design — a Brighton laptop bag and case maker until last month, when it was purchased by a Buffalo company — is planning to come out this summer with a new line of laptop and tablet bags made domestically.
"It's been my dream to get back to making bags in America," said Skooba founder Michael Hess, who now is a consultant for new owner Norazza Inc., whose brands include the Ape Case line of camera cases. "There's always been this hue and cry for more American-made products ... but no one would pay for it."
The New Jersey-based Travel Goods Association estimates that 99 percent of the luggage sold in the United States today is imported, with the vast majority coming from China, said Director of Government Relations Nate Herman. Whether a U.S.-made product can compete depends on numerous factors, including price, market niche and consumer trends, Herman said.
While storage trunks can be had for as cheap as $50 at major discount retail chains, Rhino pricing for consumer products can range anywhere from about $160 to $180 for a standard footlocker to roughly $1,000 for a wardrobe trunk with built-in drawers.
"They're some of the best trunks for the price point in the world," said Vangellow. "Too many of the items we buy in this country are disposable. These trunks will last a lifetime."
Founder Greg Hurwitz. who had run a distributor of summer camp supplies, including trunks, started the company in 2003, first as an online retailer and then as a manufacturer. "I had a falling out with that manufacturer and their quality really was not up to the standard I expected. So I said, 'Let's build them here.' "
"I knew the industry really well, I'd been in manufacturing most of my adult life, so I knew what manufacturing entailed. It's a box. I looked at it and said, I've got to build it a better way."
In 2008, Vangellow's and business partner Paul Wells' AcquisitionsNow LLC of Rochester bought into the company, letting it invest in more capacity and in computer-controlled machining tools, automating much of what had been a more labor-intensive process.
Today, the company occupies roughly 20,000 square feet of space in an industrial park in Rochester's southeast side and employs roughly 20. Last year, it added a third computer-run drilling and cutting machine to help with the volumes that came with OCM starting to carry its products. And that extra capacity helped in landing the West Point deal, Vangellow said.
Its big markets are the college crowd and summer camps. It also does numerous trunks used in promotions or for display purposes, such as a line of NHL-themed footlockers it did for a beer brewer, with the trunks containing beer coolers.
Rhino sees its next big market as trunks as rolling mobile dressers and wardrobe, such as for urban dwellers in lofts and apartments where space is a premium.
"We've been very busy with our existing customers," Hurwitz said. "We're ready now to make a hard push on some of these."
Hess spent a decade as an executive with Saunders Group, a maker and distributor of photographic equipment. And Saunders for a time made its Domke camera bag line in Rochester. "Eventually, the market demanded better pricing," Hess said. And when he started Skooba in 1999, "I didn't have the luxury of making stuff here. There was no choice but to start offshore."
Skooba's bags, and the gear of its sister company that Norazza also bought, Hotdog Yoga Gear, came largely from China. The American-made bags were a project already well underway at Skooba when Norazza acquired the company.
The U.S.-made bags — named Type S-4 and with a distinct military-like styling to them — are being manufactured for it by a Midwestern company that also does some work for the U.S. Defense Department. Hess said. And the labels on the bags, with American flags and "Made in the USA" lettering, make the origins clear.
When selling the bags, Hess said, "In the list of features, 'Made in the U.S' will be very high. "This is an indestructible bag, made to military standards. By the way, it's 100 percent made in the U.S. Everything we do in marketing definitely will have the flag on it."
Norazza is starting with a small batch of 500 to 1,000 bags, with retail prices of $130 to $160. "That's pretty aggressive pricing for U.S. made," Hess said. "If people like it, our hope is we can get into more production.
"I think they'll be gone in a month. You have to prove (to distributors and retailers) the demand is there."
