Exxel Outdoors Inc. Case Study

Bringing American manufacturing jobs back by betting big … and winning … on shuttered Alabama sleeping bag factory

Haleyville, Ala. – Exxel Outdoors CEO Harry Kazazian made a calculated

gamble in buying a soon-to-be-closed sleeping bag factory in rural

Alabama at a time when most of the industry had moved to China. By

modernizing, retooling and reinventing factory processes, Kazazian

believed he could manufacture sleeping bags at lower cost and higher

quality than those he was getting from his Chinese manufacturers.

Exxel Outdoors Inc.

Fast facts:

- Founded in a garage in the late 1980s

- More than 100 employees

- 20% growth in American workforce from insourcing

- Providing critical employment in area with a high unemployment rate

- Town population: 4,300

- Recycles 98% of its industrial waste

It was a good bet. Not only did he save desperately needed jobs in a

town with significantly high unemployment, his company continues to

bring previously outsourced jobs back to America, while also driving job

growth among the new American suppliers with which Exxel has

partnered. In January 2012, Kazazian was one of a few business leaders

asked to participate in President Obama’s “Insourcing American Jobs

Forum” in Washington, D.C.

“Colleagues said I was crazy to buy a plant slated for closure that was losing hundreds of thousands of

dollars monthly,” Kazazian said. “Today, we’ve increased American production of our sleeping bags from

40 to nearly 90 percent.”

Exxel Outdoors now produces more than two million bags annually at what remains the only major

sleeping bag factory in America. The company specializes in family camping bags under brands such as

Suisse Sport, American Trails and Master Sportsman, as well as a licensing agreement with brands like

Disney, Marvel and Hello Kitty.

Since rescuing the plant and expanding production, Exxel has increased its U.S. workforce by more than

20 percent with approximately 100 employees in Haleyville and plans to add about 25 percent more jobs

over the next two years. This expansion has had a ripple effect throughout the area. As Haleyville Mayor

Ken Sunseri explained, “Exxel has been a stable manufacturer in our community, providing not only

critical jobs for our citizens, but also for their suppliers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and

Tennessee. Their payroll has built homes, bought groceries and provided economic development to our

city.”

Exxel Outdoors Inc.

Kazazian grew up poor in an immigrant family in Los Angeles, and literally began his business in his

garage in the late 1980s. So giving back to the community is elemental to his company’s corporate

culture. It routinely comes to the aid of communities struck by natural disasters, providing sleeping bags

and supplies to victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Haiti Earthquake, and the recent mid-west tornados that

hit the Alabama area particularly hard.

Being a good corporate steward of the earth is also important to its operations. The company’s products

are made from 80 percent recycled polyester fill, which has saved more than 32 million pounds of the

material from ending up in landfills. Exxel recycles 98 percent of its industrial waste, including shipping all

its cloth waste to India-based companies, who repurpose the material for other uses. It has reduced

package materials by 50 percent. And the company is exploring ways to run the plant completely on

renewable energy.

Kazazian believes his company’s successful gamble will be contagious in spurring other outdoor

companies to bring manufacturing jobs back to America. “Patriotism isn’t enough to make a factory run; it

has to make good business sense. We’ve proven that by making strategic efficiency improvement

investments, American manufacturing can compete and thrive. Companies tend to emulate success.”

Exxel Outdoors Inc.