Page 56 - Southern Oregon Magazine Summer 2022
P. 56

neck of the woods | in the biz


             WHY ARE SAWYER PADDLES AND OARS SO UNIQUE
             AND SOUGHT AFTER?
             A big question customers are asking: “When is X item going to
             be in stock?” The answer is complex, and here’s why…

        Sawyer is a manufacturer and not a warehouse. Therefore  all their
        products require assembly time. Sawyer’s ability to create cream-of-
        the-crop, highly desirable, built-to-order customized paddles and oars
        is an extra obstacle to navigate in product delivery. One of the most
        iconic and specialized products Sawyer produces are oars shaped from
        ash and Douglas fir woods. These are carved onsite in Southern Oregon
        at their manufacturing facility and headquarters in Talent. Assembly
        options for wooden oars like handle styles, blade shape, and rope wrap
        specifications all require unique components that must first be in stock
        before assembly can occur. Theoretically, if the options selected are in
        stock (fingers crossed), then those components will still typically take
        several processes to come to completion.

        Kauffman explains – “Sawyer walks a line of customization with our
        products. Our paddles and oars are handcrafted, not created in mass
        like Pez dispensers. Shaping wood, making something by hand along
        with other assembly requires artistic nuance. There are many hands
        that touch all aspects of our paddles and oars during assembly. Even
        something that seems as simple as an MXS-G oar shaft requires a lot
        of hands.”

        At the moment, fulfillment times on various Sawyer products range
        from 2 to 8 weeks. To break this down, it takes 2-4 weeks for your
        order to enter the queue. In other words there is a lag time for your
        order to be received, read, and put through to the production floor. If
        assembly can be done the day it hits the production floor, the process
        starts to speed up. If the order is more complex like MXS-G oar shafts
        with custom patterns and counter balance, DyneLite PRO Oar Blades,
        Gilman Grips and Karmik re-connect gear labels (which must be fiber-
        glassed into the item), then the fulfillment process will take longer.
        WHERE DID SAWYER’S REPUTATION IN INDUSTRY
        LEADERSHIP COME FROM ANYWAY?

        In 1967, Ralph Sawyer was a woodworker shaping canoe paddles in
        the hamlet of Rogue River. He soon met Willie Illingworth of Willie
        Drift Boats who needed someone to craft wood oars for the dories he
        was making. According to Kauffman, Ralph was reluctant and Willie
        became a real thorn in his side. Fast forward half a century, perhaps
        Ralph had a premonition of the fulfillment issues to come. By 1969
        Willie had hassled Ralph long enough and Sawyer’s first ever oar model
        was underway, the Sawyer Lite, which is still in production today.

        Sawyer’s second production facility, in Talent, Oregon, launched in the
        80s under the leadership of Bruce Bergstom. He is also responsible
        for modern oar designs like the Dynelite Blade, the MX series and
        the Polecat series. He brought the company into the future of oars by
        experimenting with composite materials and a willingness to integrate
        technologies available at the time.





    54   www.southernoregonmagazine.com | summer 2022
   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61