Chapter 1, 1976
It's October 1976, and the head office of Concept2 is the back of a bread truck. The previous year my brother and I had been in California training for the Olympic trials in the pair. We had made a set of oars for ourselves in the kitchen of our apartment, secret weapons made of carbon fiber, and held together with hope. The trials did not go as planned-no ticket to the Montreal Olympics for us. However, in spite of our less than victorious performance, the prototype oars attracted some attention. Up to this time, all oars used for this type of rowing were made of wood. Carbon fiber was rare in sporting goods, still mostly used in military aircraft. The time was ripe for bringing the new materials to the sport.
We had pulled up stakes in California on our way east to the trials. Now, the converted bread truck served as home and office as we searched for a location to set up shop and pursue the carbon fiber oar. Northern Vermont became the focus of our search. The vision was to recycle an abandoned dairy farm into a tinkerer's paradise where we would live and work and make ends meet. With eyes that saw only potential, we bought that perfect place and moved in, together with my (future) wife, in November, 1976. The farm was a wreck, and we spent most of the next six months trying to stay warm.
We had a blast that first winter and spring and were able to hobble together a few oars by the summer. Some of that early oar making equipment was made from old farm machinery parts that came with the place.
In the summer of 1977, the U.S. Women's Pair, Anne Warner and Anita DeFrantz, agreed to try an early set of Dreissigacker Oars, and used them in the World Championships. But it wasn't until after the '78 season that things started getting busy. Some of the college crews were using our oars and doing better than certain other coaches had expected.
Early oar testing via Dick standing on the oar. Celebrating oar shaft #1000!
Chapter 2, 1980
By 1980, we had 8 employees, the barn had become a reasonable factory, and we were shipping oars all over the world. Without question, it was time to diversify. Within a year, we were producing carbon fiber ski poles and windsurfing masts. Though the designs were effective, neither of these projects proved to be economical.
Now comes the big idea. The winters are long here in Vermont. A training device for rowers who live in cold places just might be something that people could use. It would have to feel like rowing in a boat and be affordable. One day, we nailed my old bicycle to the floor of the barn and pulled on the free end of the chain. It was remarkably close to what we had in mind.
By the fall of 1981, we were selling the Rowing Ergometer (later to be known as the Model A) made substantially from bicycle components. Four months later, the phone rang and it was the C.R.A.S.H.-B. rowing club calling from Boston about the indoor rowing race they were planning. Who would have thought then how far-reaching indoor racing would become? It was as if the rowing community had just been waiting for the Erg to come along.
This led to the next unanticipated move…out of the barn.
By 1984, there was just too much happening at the barn. We had 12 employees, trucks in and out, not enough space. It was time to move out of the barn and into the Morrisville Industrial Park. There were two other tenants in the park. One made craft supplies, the other made wood stoves.
The rowing community had embraced the Erg and, in a grass roots sort of way, was spreading the word about the fitness benefits of indoor rowing to friends and family. The expansion of the use of the Erg into the general public pointed out some limitations in the basic bicycle parts idea. At this point, we undertook the first revision of the design, adding a flywheel cover for safety, improving the comfort and feel of the rower, and adding a powerful performance monitor.
The "Model B" served well through the eighties. For those who do not remember, the eighties saw rowing as one of the big players in the fitness world-along with the treadmill, bike, and cross-country ski machine. However, most people thought of a rowing machine as the two-armed, shock absorber jobs that would spend more time in yard sales than in use. There must have been more than a dozen companies making rowing machines in the eighties, some even claiming a connection to rowing on the water. Today, most of them are out of the rowing business.
Chapter 4, 1991 Back on the water
Meanwhile, we were still making oars. Initially, our work with oars was focused on the materials. We were able to make the oar lighter and more durable than the wooden products before. In the seventies that was a pretty big deal. By 1990, the majority of the crews were using our oars.
In 1991, we made some more radical attempts to increase rowing efficiency through blade design. That fall, we came out with the "Big Blade," an asymmetric hatchet-shaped blade that appeared to be 1-2% faster than existing designs. By the next summer, most of the crews at the '92 Olympic Games were using them. Since then, there has been a constant search for the faster oar. My brother and I consider one of the perks of this job the fact that we get to field test new oar designs just about every time we row. It is like reliving the beginning all over again.
Chapter 5, 2000
Both my brother and I are over fifty now. A few years ago Dick, who is older than me, was feeling that he needed to maintain strength as he "aged." (Note that Dick is about as fit as the top 5% of people in their twenties). This was the seed that resulted in the development of the DYNO, our strength training device, introduced in 2000. Just like the faster oar and the Erg for training during our frozen winters, the DYNO was born out of a personal need.
Chapter 6, 2001
We have been fortunate to see a steadily increasing number of people who discover rowing year after year. "Model C", the current revision of the erg design, was developed in the early nineties and is in use all over the world. It never ceases to amaze me to see how many people participate in the indoor races or enter the web-based world rankings or just communicate with fellow rowers in the news group. The indoor rowing community has become truly global.
We are often asked the question, "What was Concept one?" The short answer is there was no such product. The long answer describes a design philosophy that we try to incorporate in the engineering of our products from the start. It goes like this: The first solution to a problem is seldom the best one. It takes looking at a problem from many directions, coming up with many solutions and throwing out the ones that are mediocre. Not holding on to the first concept will result in a more innovative solution. We hope to follow this path as both our products and our organization evolve.
Archived Photos: Bari Dreissigacker
