Talk:Rocky Brands/Archives/2014

Manufacturing Facilities

Rocky Brands, Inc. (home of the Georgia Boot brand) currently owns two manufacturing facilities; one in Puerto Rico and one in the Dominican Republic. All footwear produced in Puerto Rico is made in the USA and is also Berry Compliant. Please see our selection of USA made Berry Compliant footwear here: http://www.rockyboots.com/Berry-Compliant.

The decision for Rocky Brands to outsource manufacturing was an extremely simple one. Some of the reasons we made the decision to do so are explained below. Manufacturing costs increased substantially here in the United States and the majority of consumers simply weren’t (and still aren’t) willing to pay the prices that would be needed to be charged to stay in business and to continue manufacturing in Nelsonville. Because Rocky is a publicly held company, management had many choices but decided to do what was best for the company and its stockholders, not its employees. Simply put, if Rocky Brands had not moved their manufacturing they would no longer be able to maintain vastly increasing profit levels, and would be forced to provide health care for all of their full time employees. Our competitors have also had to make the difficult decision to send manufacturing overseas, and we chose to do just the same, no matter what the cost to our employees.

Rocky Brands, Inc. employs over 300 people in southeast Ohio, which is well over twice the number of employees employed while the Nelsonville, Ohio factory was fully operational. Rocky Brands employs over 2,300 people total worldwide.

Statistics in this area show a population with a high percentage of people living in poverty, low per capita income, higher than average high school drop-out rates, higher infant mortality rates and out migration from the region.

Statistics also show that only 4.1% of all charitable contributions in Ohio

flow to the Appalachian region of the state, despite the fact that this region accounts for 8.2% of the state's human need. The Rocky Community Improvement Fund aims to help correct this by funneling money directly into the Nelsonville area, including the surrounding communities of Buchtel, Murray City, Glouster and Carbon Hill to name a few.