Selling Shoe Goo to Marathoners in Japan, 1977.
Awesome Goo's history is intertwined with the professional background and interests of the company’s founding executive, Bob Connelly. Bob's concern for environmental issues started in the 1970s when he took a job promoting biodegradable machine tool lubricants. That step led Bob to join the pollution prevention movement. He traveled all over the world, with his career taking him to Japan to start a new account promoting these industrial lubricants. Bob joined Barclay and Company and decided to stay in Japan and promote pollution control. As an avid jogger since 1964, he saw Japan with his running shoes on. He jogged around the Imperial Palace daily. In Japan, Bob became interested in reverse osmosis systems (RO), which treat polluted water.
Cover of Japanese Runners magazine
He helped Barclay promote the RO system and also filed several patents for the systems.
In 1976, Barclay sold the RO rights to Sumitomo Heavy Industries, one of Japan’s corporate giants. Bob’s boss at the time recommended that he form his own company. Bob discussed his new business venture while out running with a Japanese friend, Kitagawa-San, who promptly signed on with the start-up company. The partners incorporated International Technical Trading K.K. Kitagawa-San and Bob imported products for runners, which included an adhesive repair product called Shoe Goo. They went to fun runs and marathons all over Japan selling Shoe Goo from a folding card table. INTEC joined the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan in 1976. In 1978, Bob became the Chair of the chamber’s Licenses, Patents and Trademarks Committee because of his strong interest and experience in international patent
Bob and other AmCham officers with Reagan, 1986 G7 Summit.
and trademark practices. The committee's membership included Coca-Cola, Disney, RCA, DuPont, Union Carbide and several intellectual property lawyers.
To bring more attention to the product, INTEC took on a unique marketing effort in 1979. INTEC sold on the Boatique America, a Japanese-American government effort to confront the trade imbalance. Bob also sold reflective products for joggers, flag jogging shorts and roller skates (which were a fad in the U.S. at the time). The ship went to 13 ports around the main island Honshu and to Hokkaido and Kyushu. Before Boatique America,
Boatique America at sea.
INTEC only sold direct or by mail order. Exposure from that trip led to their first distribution deal. As the saying goes in Japan: "The three most important tools for selling are Distribution, Distribution and Distribution." They were off.
With the increasing concern about global warming, INTEC decided to limit its use of Volatile Organic Substances (VOCs). Bob has experimented with U.V.-curing resins sensitive to the rays of the sun. But, they wouldn’t cure in the dark, thus making it no good for bonding applications. So, Bob was delighted when his Japanese affiliate found a heat-curing material
Bob with two Osaka officials, opening of American Fair, 1987.
with elastic properties that requires no solvents – Awesome Goo was born. What made it even better is the new adhesive cures in minutes, rather than the 24-48 hours required by many repair goos. In December, 2009 INTEC made its U.S. début at the Las Vegas "Rock n Roll" marathon, bringing Bob’s business full circle back home.
