Cablz Eyewear Retainers
Keeping eyeglasses in place with style By John N. Felsher
In 2007, Ron Williams, a medical equipment supplier, began to exit a hospital parking deck when the strap on his sunglasses snagged something, flinging the glasses into his face. This nearly caused Williams to wreck. In frustration, he hurled his glasses away from him. They landed on a spool of surgical steel cable that doctors use to anchor bones in place when operating on complex fractures. At that moment, the proverbial light bulb turned on in his head. “That was the ‘aha moment,’ when I held up the steel cable and thought, ‘I wonder how this would do,’” he recalled. He envisioned making a device that could hold glasses in place, but avoid snagging because the stiffness of the cable would keep it suspended off the back of a person’s head. A year later, Ron and his wife Holly began marketing their patented coated stainless steel off-the-neck Cablz retainers to active sports enthusiasts such as anglers,
cyclists, paddlers and others who spend considerable time outdoors. In 2009, the company won a best new product award at the ICAST show, the largest fishing industry trade show in the world. Now, the Birmingham-based business sells its products all over the world. “We started in our garage in 2008 and moved to a 5,000-square-foot office/warehouse in Birmingham in September 2011,” Holly says. “This year, we’re moving to a 9,200-square-foot facility nine blocks from our current warehouse! Alabama is home for me. I grew up in Guntersville. Alabama is a great location to start a business because it’s centrally located in the Southeast.” At first, all Cablz retainers came in one size and one color -- silver steel cable with black rubber grommets. Introduced just this year, the company now also makes retainers out of fly fishing line and other products. Like the others, this product also comes equipped with patented ball bearing
technology and universal ends that fit most eyeglass frames, but they come in adjustable lengths and varied colors. “The main thing people like about Cablz is that it stays off the neck,” Holly explained. “It’s so light weight, low profile and just cool looking. With traditional cloth eyewear straps, anglers get fish juice, bait or sweat on the straps and they start to stink. With Cablz, people finally have an eyewear retainer that doesn’t get hot, sweaty or nasty.” For more information, call 205-8683662 or visit www.cablz.com.
Award-winning product’s now sold worldwide.
Humminbird Electronics
Finding fish in the depths for more than four decades By John N. Felsher
In 1971, several entrepreneurs met in Eufaula, Ala., on Lake Eufaula to develop a way to see what secrets the lake held in its depths. Calling themselves Fulton Electronics, they invented the first electronic fishfinding devices, marketed as Humminbird Depth Sounders. Over the years, Fulton Electronics became Techsonic Industries. The Humminbird brand now falls under Johnson Outdoors, but the company continued to develop many innovative technologies to help anglers catch more fish over the years. Today, people can scarcely find a boat not equipped with some type of electronic depth sounding device. Current side-scanning technology displays almost look like a movie of the lake bottom. “For more than 45 years, Humminbird has been blessed to be the leader in fishfinding technologies like patented Side Imaging, 360 Imaging and LakeMaster maps,” explains Jeff Kolodzinski, the Humminbird brand manager. “We have broken grounds in technology not thought possible and the 24 SEPTEMBER 2015
angling community has approved. The vast majority of our input comes from people using our products. Nobody knows better than they do about what they want.” Still based in Eufaula, the company expanded into making communication, navigation and other electronic devices. Today, the company sells more than $100 million worth of electronics annually in more than 100 nations. “We stay in Alabama because we have a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Eufaula,” Kolodzinski says. “Over the years, we have put millions of dollars in technological upgrades into the facility. We have trained staff to perform very technical functions in a highly competitive field. Our roots run deep in the community and in the anglers we serve.” Most recently, Humminbird won its fifth consecutive “Best of Electronics” award during the 2015 ICAST show, the largest fishing industry trade show in the world. Dealers and outdoors media attending the
show voted its HELIX 7 depth sounder as the best new electronics product displayed at the show. “Our goal was to combine our leadingedge technologies with solutions to the real-world problems anglers and boaters face each day on the water,” Kolodzinski says. “The result is a bigger, brighter, nearly glare-free screen with numerous proven, fish-catching features and innovations. For more than 40 years, anglers have relied on Humminbird technologies to enjoy their sport. We will remain focused on serving the angling community from our home community of Eufaula.” For more information, call 1-800-6331468 or visit www.humminbird.com. Eufaula-based business is boon to fishermen.
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