[Chainmail]

Colt has been in sad straits for years. The company had some labor issues about 20 years ago, just when the company was transitioning to a leadership team who was looking for ways to make the products cheaper. I was interviewed twice by Colt for an executive position but both times I asked to see the production floor and to talk to the craftsmen. That was not a proper thing to do according the Front Office and they didn't want me both times.

When I went to Hartford, Colt still had very fine workers and outstanding craftsmen, particularly in the Colt Custom Gunshop but the factory floor was dirty and filled with both 19th Century overhead belt-driven polishers and computer-controlled machinery stations. While the Colt workers wanted to keep making the beautifully-hand finished Colts we all know and admire, the Front Office wanted castings and plastic and roll pins.

Never could convince them that we want quality and most of us are willing to pay the difference. Their loss.

[Lurker]

See post 16.

Best,

L

[ABN 505]

I was in the plant doing a job a couple weeks ago [hope my check won’t bounce] and was admiring all the new machining they had installed also the plant looks much cleaner than before. They really screwed the pooch when they got into bed with the anti gun nuts and our head nut Dannel Malloy!

[aposiopetic]

I've had interviews like that, where it becomes clear that execs who should be leaders are just trying to make, or save, a buck, lacking both strategic vision and understanding of operational detail, trying to make up for it by following passing trends while ignoring the unambiguous long-term trajectory of end-user demand. Their more entrepreneurial competitors soon outperform them and end up owning their business.

As you said, it's their loss.