All you guys that think that Maglite should move probably didn’t notice that the owner is 82. Moving his company across country (and leaving his grandchildren behind) is probably too much to ask of a man who doesn’t have that many years left. And it isn’t cheap to move. It would take years for him to recoup his expenses, even if he were willing — not that it wouldn’t be a good idea in the long run.
Maglite’s problem is that they *need* to move - either move the company somewhere else, move their product line into the present day (they are sorely behind the rest of the market - practically unchanged product lineup for the past 30 years) or possibly both.
They should have actually started doing this back around 2000, but they missed the opportunity then. Now they HAVE to do something or they will go under - and it will have been self-inflicted.
If I were the owner, and at 82, I’d be thinking about my legacy. Stay in Kali and end up with nothing but debt and bankruptcy, or - make one last big move and save the enterprise by taking it somewhere else. Easy? No. Expensive? Yes. But nothing offers a better opportunity to save something of your life’s work.
Seriously: are things going to get any better for Mag-Lite in California?