From a Jackson Guide's Idea to a Bozeman Factory: How Simms Became the Wader Company
Simms started in Wyoming in 1980, moved to Bozeman in the early 1990s and sold to Vista Outdoor in 2022 for $192.5 million. Here is how it got there.
Anyone who has fished the Gallatin or the Madison has probably seen the Simms logo on a pair of waders. The company that makes them is one of the better examples of a Montana manufacturer that chose a narrow product, made it well and grew from there.
A guide who wanted better gear
Simms was founded in 1980 by John Simms, a fishing guide and outfitter in Jackson, Wyoming. According to the company's Wikipedia history, which draws on a 2012 Big Sky Journal profile, he started the business to make waders and wading equipment of higher quality than what was available at the time.
In the mid-1980s, Simms introduced high quality neoprene waders to the U.S. market. John Simms later sold the company to Life-Link International, another sporting goods maker based in Jackson.
The move to Bozeman
The next owner changed the company's home. K.C. Walsh, a management consultant from Los Angeles, bought Simms from Life-Link in the early 1990s and moved it to Bozeman. Wikipedia dates the purchase to 1992, while Vista Outdoor's 2022 announcement puts it in 1993.
Shortly after the move, Simms introduced breathable waders made with Gore-Tex. A 2012 profile by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, cited by Wikipedia, described Simms as the only U.S. wader maker, and one of three worldwide, licensed by W. L. Gore and Associates to use Gore-Tex in waders.
Products that followed the customer
Simms built its reputation through a run of specific product decisions:
- It was one of the first wader makers to produce waders cut specifically for women who fly fish.
- In 2006 it released the G4Z, a zippered wader using waterproof zippers from Japan's YKK Group. Zippered waders already existed, but the G4Z was widely described as setting a new standard.
- After Trout Unlimited asked the industry in 2008 to drop felt soles to slow the spread of invasive aquatic species, Simms said it would remove felt from its 2010 line. In July 2011 it brought felt soles back, citing strong customer demand.
That last episode is a useful reminder that even a values-driven brand has to listen when customers push back.
A Montana factory with global sales
By 2012, about 30 percent of Simms sales were international, and the company kept warehouses in Europe, Japan and New Zealand. It employed 115 people in Bozeman and consolidated manufacturing into a single 62,000 square foot facility in October 2013. In 2016 it received the President's "E" Award, a federal honor for exporters.
Simms has also tied its brand to the rivers its customers fish. After the 2022 flooding in Yellowstone National Park, it committed $50,000 toward recovery, funded in part by special edition waders.
The 2022 sale
On August 23, 2022, Vista Outdoor, the parent of brands including CamelBak and Bushnell, announced it had closed its purchase of Simms for $192.5 million. That figure included a net present value of roughly $20 million in future tax benefits. Vista said Simms would add about $110 million in net sales and that Simms had grown net sales at a compound annual rate of about 15 percent from 2019 to 2021.
Vista said Simms CEO Casey Sheahan would keep running daily operations and that the existing management team and employees would stay in place. Walsh, who had been executive chairman, stayed on as a strategic advisor. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reported that Vista CEO Chris Metz visited Simms headquarters in Four Corners after the deal and called it his company's first move into fishing products.
Lessons for Montana business owners
- Pick a product you can own. Simms became known for waders first and built its other lines on that reputation.
- Location can be part of the brand. A fly fishing company based near some of the best-known trout water in the country has a story customers believe.
- Exports are within reach. A Bozeman manufacturer selling close to a third of its product overseas shows that rural Montana is not a barrier to global customers.
For more on Montana companies and the people who run them, visit the Montana Statesman.
