Easton (company)
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| Jas. D. Easton, Inc. | |
|---|---|
| Type | Private |
| Founded | 1922 |
| Founder | Doug Easton |
| Headquarters | Van Nuys, California, United States |
| Key people | Doug Easton founder |
| Products | Sporting Goods |
| Employees | 1,000+ |
| Divisions | Archery Baseball/Softball Hockey Cycling |
| Website | http://www.eastonsports.com |
In 1922, Doug Easton began crafting custom wood bows and cedar arrows in Watsonville, California. Although Doug produced tournament-grade, footed cedar arrows for the archery champions of that era, he was constantly frustrated with the inconsistency and lack of uniformity of wood shafts.
Convinced that consistently straight uniform arrow shafts were impossible to manufacture from wood, Doug turned his attentions to aluminum. In 1939, he began manufacturing aluminum arrows in Los Angeles. His instincts about this material were correct, and in 1941, California archer Larry Hughes won the national championship with a set of Doug's aluminum arrows. This was the beginning of a trend that would change traditional archery and transcend into numerous other sports arenas over the next 50 years.
Today, Jas. D. Easton, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer, marketer and distributor of sporting equipment, headquartered in Van Nuys, California. It currently employs more than 1,000 people worldwide in various distribution, manufacturing, sales and marketing capacities. Other operations are located in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mexico and Canada.
[edit] Easton Archery
Part of the Easton company is the archery division. Easton Archery is a world leader in arrow design, as is reflected by the number of top archers shooting their arrows. In addition to arrows (and their components), Easton Archery also manufactures stabilizers.
The Easton X10 is, by far, the most commonly used shaft among the world's top recurve archers. After Easton's successes with aluminum/carbon composite shafts such as the ACC and ACE, George Tekmitchov set about designing an arrow specifically for use in the Olympic Games. Designed in time to be used at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the Easton X10 is an aluminum alloy tube wrapped in carbon fiber. The carbon is "barreled", meaning it is thicker in the middle section of the shaft, and tapered towards either end. It is Easton's thinnest shaft, which means it is not as affected by the wind. A greater weight per inch, means that the X10 holds downrange velocity better than other shafts and enables greater accuracy. The X10 now holds a majority of outdoor world records (especially in recurve archery).
Easton also manufactures a large variety of aluminum alloy arrows for indoor target archery and hunting. With 60+ years of aluminum alloy experience, they have designed what is possibly the most successful arrow to date: the X7. Until the advent of all-carbon and A/C composite arrows, the X7 was used both indoor and outdoors. These days, fewer and fewer archers are using the lighter and larger diameter X7 for distance shooting and prefer to use them specifically for indoor shooting.
Other aluminum-alloy arrow models currently made by Easton include the Jazz, XX75, Stalker, Genesis and Legacy. Other aluminum/carbon composite arrows currently made by Easton include the X10 Protour, ACE, Navigator and FMJ Navigator.
[edit] Other Products
Easton is a major player in the world of aluminum baseball and softball bats with their only real competition coming from Miken, DeMarini, Louisville Slugger and the Louisville Slugger TPX Sub-brand. Their best known bat is the Stealth.
Easton manufactures Hockey equipment, and apparel with its "Synergy" and "Stealth" sticks being the most popular among NHL players. The newly released Stealth S17 is the first ever elliptical-designed hockey stick, and is used by NHLers such as Dany Heatley, and Marian Gaborik. Both of these lines are on their 3rd edition, showing their popularity. They also make shafts, blades, and protective equipment. The shafts and blades are also very popular, but the protective equipment is not as popular. However, they are launching a new line of equipment, the stealth line, which includes their first helmet to expand into the protective equipmet market. Proof of Easton's popularity is the fact that other companies and people who play hockey, call the company the Evil Empire of Hockey. They say this in a good way showing how prevalent and high quality their equipment is.
Easton also produces many high-grade bicycle components and camping equipment.
Easton offers an extensive range of bicycle components including forks, stems, handlebars, seatposts, wheels, pedals and frame tubesets made from aluminum and carbon fiber.
