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GOLDSEA 100
No. 5: Bill Mow
Bugle Boy Industries
had invented machines that could measure time to a billionth of a second, I figured I could make a pair of pants," recalls Bill Mow, known to most as "Dr Mow". The title isn't honorary. The founder, chairman and CEO of Bugle Boy Industries has an electrical engineering PhD from Purdue University which led to his first business career -- building testing equipment to measure the speed of large-scale integrated circuits, the precursors of today's computer chips.
Turns out he was right. He could make a pair of pants. But soon after launching Bugle Boy Mow learned that making the pants wasn't the hard part.
"I went from a position of industry leadership to standing in a 15 by 15 sales booth," Mow recalls of the frustrations of his early days as a fashion mogul. "I was no better than a f _ _ _ ing salesman!" But life turned sweet when the company's parachute pants became its first huge hit. They also proved to be its first disaster, one that almost put Bugle Boy under. Making the mistake of thinking the craze could be milked indefinitely, Mow overstocked. Within months he was unloading several hundred thousand pairs at fifty cents apiece.
[CONTINUED BELOW]
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But within three years of its founding in 1976, Bugle Boy hit its stride spectacularly. Between 1980 and 1989 it enjoyed an average growth rate of 90% a year. Relieved of the daily struggle for survival, Mow set a new goal -- overtaking Levis. By 1990 Bugle boy was outselling Levis in the boys and young men's categories. Unfortunately, Levis continued to dominate the far bigger and more lucrative men's category with a 90% market share.
Mow's biggest hurdle was convincing upscale department store chains to carry his lines. Despite successes, by 1992 Bugle Boy's growth stalled at the $500 million level. In the face of growing competition and cooling demand, Mow all but abandoned his frontal assault on department stores, which too had become a declining casualwear channel. Over a five-year span he invested in a national chain of 160 Bugle Boy outlets. That strategy let the company hold its own throughout the 90s but offered no prospect of breaking through to the billion-dollar mark Mow had set back in 1990. By 1995 he refocused Bugle Boy on providing quality at value prices rather than pursuing those profitable but fickle teen fashion victims, and redirected sales into chains like Mervyns, Walmart and Sears.
Recently Bugle Boy introduced a line of golf attire and redesigned its website for e-commerce. It also moved its Asian operations from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China with hopes of becoming a name in that market. For 1998 sales stayed flat at $520 million with profits of about $40 million. Encouraged by strong growth in new lines, Mow has retrained his sights on hitting that long-elusive billion-dollar mark in 2001. About half of Bugle Boy sales comes from its outlet stores. Mow has been 100% owner since 1994 when he bought back the 10% share owned by Vincent Nesi, Bugle Boy's former President and head of its New York sales office.
Bill Mow was born in Hangchow, China in 1937. His father was a Nationalist general and diplomat who fell out of favor with Chiang's government several years after the family moved to the U.S. After attending the Riverside School, Mow graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1959 and married the same year. He got his PdD from Purdue University in 1967 and worked at Litton Industries before leaving in 1969 to start Macrodata. After being forced out by investors, Mow founded Buckaroo International which later became Bugle Boy Industries. In the mid-80s Mow divorced his first wife Margarita and remarried an employee from his Taiwan office who is now Bugle Boy's COO. Mow's two daughters by his first wife work as executives at Bugle Boy's Simi Valley headquarters. Mow has two more children by second wife Rosa.
| "I went from a position of industry leadership to standing in a 15 by 15 sales booth." |