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Outside Magazine honors bag that’s strong as an Oxx; Billings company bags national award

Outside Buyer’s Guide has selected a bag made by Red Oxx Manufacturing http://www.redoxx.com/ of Billings as one of this year’s 15 best outdoors products.

The competition wasn’t a beauty contest either.

James Glave, who edits the popular magazine’s annual Outside Buyer’s Guide, said the winning products must offer cutting-edge design and be really rugged.

By JAN FALSTAD
Of The Gazette Staff

http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/04/15/build/business/20-oxx-bag.inc

"Our testers dragged it with a car down the sidewalk and threw it off the second-story balcony and tried to destroy it," Glave said. "We really place enormous emphasis on rigorous testing."

The product is the PR5 Safari Beano, a ruggedly built airline carry-on bag that features locking outside pockets and an inner locked compartment. It’s available in 12 colors.

Gear testers don’t have years to drag luggage around the world, Glave said, so they compress that normal wear and tear into a few months of abuse. Then they send the product back to the company without immediately saying whether the gear won. So, the companies call wondering what happened.

"They’re usually pretty shocked," Glave laughed. "They ask, ‘Did it pass? And what the hell did you do to it?’ "

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Red Oxx Manufacturing, Inc.

310 N. 13th St.

Billings, Montana USA 59101

Please call our toll free number 1-888-RED-OXXX or direct dial +1 406-245-5847. You may also fax your order to 1-208-246-1011. Email

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The winners receive letters of congratulations just before the 400,000 copies of the guide are released. Other than a few advance copies sent out earlier, the Outside Buyer’s Guide will hit news racks starting April 27.

Jim Markel Jr. and Perry Jones, who own Red Oxx at 310 N. 13th St., hope the award will generate plenty of publicity and sales for the bag.

"Outside Buyer’s Guide gets passed around beyond the subscribers. It gets read by a lot of other readers," Jones said.

His partner is equally excited.

"This could just blow the roof off this bag," Markel said.

Their hopes seem to be borne out by previous winners.

Glave said because company executives aren’t told in advance that they’ve won, they cannot boost production and that has an immediate impact.

"The winning products will instantly sell out across the country," he said. "I suspect that will happen with the Red Oxx product."

He said that when a one-person tent made by Recreational Equipment Inc. won an award, sales tripled expectations.

Outside Magazine, with a regular circulation of 650,000, has published for 27 years, the first few years in Chicago and now in Santa Fe, N.M. Outside Buyer’s Guide was started 10 years ago, and the gear awards started three years ago.

Another company born in Montana, Dana Designs, also won an Outside 2004 award for a backpack called Raid Z.

Glave said Outside testers liked the pack’s no-frame innovation and usefulness on water trips.

"There is a harness system that cinches onto the dry bag which has a zip-lock seal, making it completely waterproof," Glave said.

Dana Gleason and Renee Sippel-Baker started Dana Design in 1985 in Bozeman. They sold the Montana company in 1995 to K2, which shut down the manufacturing plants in Bozeman, Livingston and Lewistown a few years later.

As part of the K2 sale, Gleason and Sippel-Baker signed a five-year no-compete clause. When that contract expired in 2000, they started another Bozeman company called Mystery Ranch Ltd., which also makes backpacks and is doing business with the U.S. military.

Mystery Ranch is opening a Bozeman retail store at the end of the month at 2010 N. Seventh Ave.

"This is the first time that we’ve ever had our own store," said Sippel-Baker.

Markel’s father, James Markel Sr., started Red Oxx in 1986 in his Billings basement when he retired from the Marine Corps. Red Oxx initially sold weight-lifting accessories wholesale.

In September 1994, Markel Jr. and Jones bought the company and started making luggage as well as other products like backpacks, horse packs, dog leashes and gun cases. They also used their military experience to design tough products.

Red Oxx sells directly to customers all over the United States and in more than a dozen countries.

Jan Falstad can be contacted at (406) 657-1306 or at [email protected].

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

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