Boston-born Robert Greenberg moved to California in 1978 after deciding that a particularly brutal East Coast winter would be his last there. His relationship with the shoe industry began with his first West Coast venture, selling roller skates during the late 1970s skating craze.
From that, he learned that the shoes had a more enduring lifespan than the skates, and formed his first shoe manufacturing company, L.A. Gear, in 1983 in Santa Monica. His son, Michael, became the company’s national sales manager.
L.A. Gear’s shoes stressed fashionability and flash over athletics-enhancing features, garnering a slew of celebrity endorsements in the process that included Michael Jackson in addition to athletes such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wayne Gretzky.
Conflicts with investors over the company’s direction led to the father-son duo leaving the firm in 1991. It floundered without Greenberg’s guidance, filing for bankruptcy in 1998. (It eventually recovered and continues to do business.)
The elder Greenberg considered retirement after leaving L.A. Gear. But his interest was rekindled after he and his son took a trip to England to investigate the growing popularity of the Doc Martens line of shoes and boots.
He and Michael decided to form a new company, Skechers, in 1992, originally to handle distribution of Doc Martens footwear in the U.S. Its first headquarters was in Greenberg’s small Manhattan Beach condominium at 26th St. and The Strand.
Distributing another company’s products had its share of frustrations, though, and the Greenbergs soon realized that they wanted to create and market their own Skechers brand.
They eventually settled on a highly visible site in Manhattan Beach, on Manhattan Beach Blvd. near Highland Ave., for the company’s headquarters at 228 Manhattan Beach Blvd, located just two blocks from the beach.
The company’s first shoe was a utility boot. The name “Skechers” came from two younger Greenberg family members, who suggested it from the term “skecher,” which they said meant an energetic kid who couldn’t sit still. (The word also is slang for a methamphetamine abuser.)
The Greenbergs created shoe designs in a wide variety of styles and colors, with an eye to appealing to consumers with a young, athletic lifestyle while still providing comfort and reliability. They quickly added lines for women and children, and began introducing sporty casual shoes as well as athletic ones.
Their efforts were a success. Skechers began to take off in the 1990s, reaching $100 million in annual sales in 1995. The privately held company went public with a successful $115 million initial public offering in 1999.
At the time, its sales had more than doubled from $183 million to $372 million. By 2001, the company had opened 59 of its own stores, and announced plans for its first foreign locations in England, Germany and France.
That same year, the company announced plans to build an office building in Manhattan Beach, on the northeast corner of Sepulveda Blvd. and Longfellow Ave. Some, but not all, employees were moved from its headquarters building into the new 57,000-square-foot structure.
One of the company’s few missteps involved its Shape-Up shoes introduced in 2011, endorsed by celebrities Joe Montana and Kim Kardashian. Ads for the round-soled shoes claimed their use would tone muscles and help customers lose weight. The Federal Trade Commission disagreed, and Skechers ended up paying upwards of $50 million to settle the matter.
The company’s growth during the early oughts was exponential. Annual sales topped $1 billion for the first time in 2005.
Celebrities have always been part of the Skechers strategy. Over the years, the company has employed football stars such as Montana, Tony Romo and Howie Long, golfers Brooke Henderson, Matt Fitzpatrick and Colin Montgomerie, and entertainment figures Martha Stewart, Willie Nelson, Demi Lovato and Kim Kardashian. (An endorsement for a line of roller skates from Brittany Spears ended in a nasty legal spat in 2002.)
The company continued to expand its facilities to meet growing demand. In 2007, it announced the construction of a 1.82-million-square-foot warehouse in Moreno Valley, one of the largest such structures in California.
In January 2019, Skechers broke ground for three additional buildings along Pacific Coast Highway, two in Manhattan Beach and one in Hermosa Beach, replacing dilapidated former auto dealership locations that had moved to Torrance.
The firm now has more than 5,000 retail stores in more than 120 countries worldwide. China has the greatest number of stores, with more than 3,000 locations, with plans to open more there. The first Skechers store in China opened in 2007.
In 2023, Skechers passed the $8 billion mark in annual sales and had become the second largest shoe company in the U.S., behind Nike. It was included in the Fortune 500 list for the first time.
Robert Greenberg, now 84, remains its CEO and chairman of the board, and his son Michael, its president.
The company remains active in charitable endeavors, sponsoring the annual Skechers Pier to Pier Friendship Walk and donating to various educational causes. In 2018, a $4 million renovation of the aquarium in the roundhouse at the end of the Manhattan Beach Pier underwritten by Skechers was opened and named in honor of Greenberg’s son Harrison, who died in 2015.
Sources:
Daily Breeze archives.
Footwear News.
Los Angeles Times archives.
Skechers website.
