For generations hunters have headed to the woods in pursuit of whitetailed deer. It is tradition, as embedded in many families as much as Thanksgiving dinner. People who come from nonhunting families cannot expect to understand.
Family ties are stretched and strengthened during deer season. Memories are created. Roles are strengthened, formed and sometimes reversed.
This tie between the family and the deer hunting tradition is so strong it’s reverent. It’s this tie that binds the Woller family.
Summit Treestands marks its 25th year of business in 2006 and is still going strong with a commitment to produce the highest quality hunting treestands and accessories. Summit is as much a family business as any owned by EBSCO, with father, John Woller Sr., as the figurehead, and sons John Jr., Ron and Will — plus son-in-law David — all in leadership roles within the company.
Summit Treestands is widely recognized as the leader in the climbing treestand industry, known for top-quality manufacturing and materials, smart design and reliable features. Summit’s been a leader in safety, as well, being the first treestand company to include a safety harness with each treestand sold. Summit also offers what is considered the safest treestand harness in the industry.
“I’m a dedicated bowhunter,” said Woller Sr., “we’re all hunters, and we test and abuse all of our products to ensure they are of the highest quality and safe — safety’s been top priority since day one.”
The Early Years
John Woller Sr. recognized the faults of climbing treestands back in the mid 1970s. They were too heavy, held together with bolts or rivets that squeaked with the slightest movement, were uncomfortable, and possibly most important, unsafe. As an engineer and a hunter, he knew he could make a better one.
Woller Sr.’s intent was not to create a company that was to become the leader in the treestand industry. His focus was on the product. After much research and plenty of discarded designs, he came up with his original stand and began slowly and meticulously producing them for his friends.
He had been a competitive archery shooter in the late 1960s and early ‘70s and gained an interest in bowhunting. “John always goes into everything 100 percent,” said wife Pat. “He was a state champion archery shooter and when he started bowhunting, he discovered that there were no good treestands on the market. So, he headed to the garage and started experimenting — we had all kinds of contraptions.”
Woller Sr. narrowed his focus early on. “I wanted a stand that possessed four characteristics,” he said, “one that was safe, stable, comfortable and camouflaged.”
After three years of research and testing, Woller Sr. produced a finished product that fit the characteristics he required and saw potential with the stand.
While the idea of mass-producing these stands might have been in the back of his mind, the cost and production work involved was prohibitive. “I thought, ‘no way would people pay $150 for a treestand,’” said Woller Sr. “This was back in the late ‘70s and that was a bunch of money — three times as much as the treestands currently on the market.”
Woller Sr. manufactured a few of his stands, packed them in the back of his truck and started personally peddling them in Decatur, Ala., and surrounding cities. It was tough going. “John did everything in his power to convince people that his stand was what hunters needed, and that they’d pay for it,” Pat said. “They didn’t know if he was crazy or really on to something. Then one day, a lady buyer for a sporting goods store sat down with him and ordered 10 stands — we were on top of the world!”
Gaining Business Steam
Woller Sr. was employed as an engineer with Amaco (now BP) and manufacturing his stands at night and on weekends. “I never let the treestand business interfere with my employment because I feel that would have been theft,” he said. “But then it got to where the treestand business was taking all of my time — all Summit and no play.” It finally got to the point that selling the company might be the only way to retain his and his family’s sanity.
Early on, the marketing of Summit treestands was all word of mouth. Woller Sr. knew that if he got a hunter to try one of his stands, that hunter would be sold, and in turn, sell his friends on the stands. He started working consumer hunting shows, and within a few years, the success stories hunters told him were selling others, and Woller could stand back and let his customers sell the stands.
In the meantime, Summit was becoming the leader in the treestand industry. Innovations such as padded seats, arm/rifle rests, open, lightweight design, silent plastic bushings, and new designs for attachment to the tree made their mark on the product and the industry.
In 1981, Summit Treestands was incorporated and the first stand was the TSQ. They sold 151 stands the first year. “I think Dad knew from the beginning that he had something deer hunters needed,” said Will Woller, Sales Manager for Summit. “But it certainly hasn’t been easy. We’ve had other treestand companies come out with features we either didn’t have or didn’t think would work. We’ve seen competition from overseas, and other companies pumping their money in to advertising at a time when we were just doing 1/4-page black-and-whites.”
Woller Sr.’s sons, John Jr., Ron and Will, plus their wives, had been helping out with the budding business during their spare time, but it was growing at a rate that was becoming unmanageable. The three sons had secure positions with another company and simply couldn’t manage two full time jobs. In 1993 it came down to a family pow-wow.
“We knew that somebody could take the business somewhere,” said Pat. “So John and I approached the boys about selling the business, but they decided that they wanted to take over the company.” The boys quit their jobs and came on to make the family business a success. But make no mistake, Woller Sr. remained the boss.
“I think they’d already talked about it,” said Woller Sr. “The whole family had been pitching in anyway — Will’s wife, Kay, helped, and Johnny’s wife Suzanne was doing our accounting and bookkeeping. When we needed marketing help, our daughter Janet’s husband David came on.”
Business Steam
With the family in place in the business, the real work began. “It was a leap of faith,” Will said of the sons starting at Summit. “We knew what the product could do, though, and were confident we could make it go.”
Early on, education was a big part of selling the stands. “The easiest part of selling them was after we got hunters into a stand,” said Ron, Summit’s Operations Manager. “We took a 12-foot pole with a huge stable base around it to shows and sporting goods stores and put hunters into the stand.” He said hunters were amazed that there were no biting teeth on the stand yet it was incredibly stable, plus the seat was comfortable. “That was the key,” Ron said, “convincing them that the longer they sat comfortably, the more likely they were to be successful.”
Much of Summit’s marketing efforts focused on consumer hunting shows and events at sporting goods stores, and by 1993 the family was working straight through the summer months. It was that year that a now defunct outdoor magazine, Southern Outdoors, rated the Summit climbing stand best stand in the industry, and that much-needed press pushed the company onto the nation’s radar.
In 1995 the company moved into its current 64,500 square-foot facility, and by 1997 they were doing all of their own manufacturing. In 1998, Summit introduced the Viper climbing stand, which featured a cable lock instead of a rigid bar to hold the stand securely to the tree.
In 2000, Woller Sr. finally accepted aluminum as a manufacturing material, and sales jumped 56 percent. Woller Sr. had experimented and discounted aluminum early on due to its inability to take a weld, but new technology and the development of the “Summit-Lokt” process of assembling the stand changed things. Summit-Lokt is a process in which the stand pieces are locked in place prior to welding. Aluminum would prove to be a boon to the company.
“We did the Birmingham, Ala., hunting show in July and were crushed with orders until Christmas,” said John Jr., General Manager. “The stand looked heavy, but people would pick it up and you could see it on their faces — it was amazingly lightweight.”
Keys to Success
“Safety has been my main concern since day one,” Woller Sr. said. “Back early in the business there were no real safety harnesses — some people tied a rope around themselves and to the tree. Summit was the first to provide a safety harness with every treestand we sell at no extra charge. Now it’s a requirement.”
In 2001 Summit bought Fall Woods, the company that manufactured the Seat-O-The-Pants harness, which Summit had been selling with its stands. In 2000, demand was so high for this harness, known in the industry as the premier safety tool when hunting from treestands, that shipping of stands was being delayed. After the purchase of Fall Woods, Summit improved production and the Seat-O-The Pants remains a huge product in the hunting industry.
“The Seat-O-The-Pants harness is the leader in its category and more testing and research is done on it than just about any other product,” Will said. “Inventor Keith Jones had done tons of research and it paralleled what we were doing with treestands. Each year we get at least 10 letters saying that it saved their lives when they fell.”
Responsible customer service also played a factor from the early days when Pat answered phone calls at all hours. “Whenever someone called, we handled it right then and there,” she said. “People called in the middle of the night — and no matter the time — there was nothing more important than listening to them.”
Woller Sr. handled plenty of those calls, too. “I put myself in the customer’s shoes — I’m a devoted bowhunter and everything’s got to be right,” he said. “When a customer called, I felt for him.” Customer service continues to be an important part of Summit’s business plan with dedicated service technicians.
Summit Treestands LLC was purchased by EBSCO in 2002, and the decision to sell was a difficult one for Woller Sr. “It’s been a very satisfying relationship, though,” Woller Sr. said. “When it’s working you just keep it working.” That’s a statement echoed by Will, who says the company is still run like it was before the sale. “We want the company to be successful, and still have the same drive to make it better,” he said.
Summit’s success boils down to a product that satisfies the four factors Woller Sr. identified early on. Make a stand that is safe, stable and secure to the tree, comfortable and camouflaged. Make the highest quality product and people will pay for it. “Put out one bad product and you’ll get hammered by it,” Woller Sr. said. “That will drag a company down quicker than anything. We’re all hunters and test every product we produce, and our products meet the needs of hunters.”