Corp. Interview: Whisper Creek Archery

Whisper Creek Archery
Jeff Nish: CEO
by David King

Whisper Creek Archery
www.whispercreekarchery.com

Tell me a little about the history of Whisper Creek Archery.

The best place to start Whisper Creek’s history is probably with my own background in archery. I have been making archery components and doing archery design work for about twenty years now. We were Browning Archery’s primary injection molding company. We did a lot of work for Browning and some other companies in the industry, so we had already established a lot of archery contacts and associations prior to the formation of Whisper Creek. That is actually how I met the original inventor, Andy Andrews, whom I partnered up with in 2004. After Andy and I partnered up, we worked hard on developing the suspension system, which we call the Axle Suspension System.

How did these ideas come about, that one day you decided to put together a bow?

Andy is a brilliant engineer, but didn’t have any manufacturing capabilities. In 2004, I went to the ATA shows as a vendor and Andy and I got to talking. Andy had some great ideas and, after the show, Andy called me. He had realized that he was never going to get his ideas off the ground unless he found someone to do the manufacturing. Through a series of deals, we decided to team up. Andy lives in Tennessee and I live in Utah. We started doing all of the manufacturing in Utah and we were shuttling Andy back and forth to help with the design work. Andy has a high-level job at Duracell. In 2006, it got to be a real hardship for Andy to keep everything going. I ended up buying Andy out and, at the same time, merged with Milltree Outdoors from Ohio. This gave us some strength in the financial area and gave us some resources we were lacking in sales and marketing. The merge also gave us a bigger team of business analysts that could look at the market and say, “These are the sectors we need to go after.” This is a very highly competitive business and not for the weak of heart. This is a family operation. My son Jonathon is Vice President and my wife runs the administrative side for the manufacturing facility. We work long and hard hours for our customers.

What makes a Whisper Creek bow different than the competition’s bows?

What makes our bows different from any other bow on the market is that we have decoupled the axle away from the limb on our pro series. On a bow, all of the strength vibration and all of the cam oscillation has to transfer through the axle. Whisper Creek is the only company that has a suspension system that the axle rides in. We try to equate it to a four-wheel drive truck and an independent suspension. We have a bushing inside our axle system that is isolated inside a special bow jam material that we have developed. So, the vibration now has to travel through that bow jam material in order to get to the limb, which gets to the riser and which gets to your hand.

What our company is really about is vibration technology. There are a lot of vibration after-market companies out there. Bolt on this, bolt on that. We are a bow company that’s known for attacking at the source and dealing with vibration on the bow, in our system.

We have technology that we have not released to the market yet. When Whisper Creek first began, we did what many small companies do; we tried to move in too fast. We ended up putting too much technology on the market at one time and it was overwhelming to the market. We were so radical. Our look was so radical. Our dealers were afraid that they might not be able to sell our product. Then Bowtech put the Guardian out there which made us look mainstream. All of a sudden, the market began to change. People were willing to say, “Hey, that does look different. But, wow, feel how it shoots.” Bowhunters are now looking for more technology, looking for more speed. If there is one thing Whisper Creek has done, it is to open people’s eyes that sound makes a difference. We were the first company to ever publish decibel ratings. At the time, everyone was concentrating on speed and how fast their bows were. Now, just about every company publishes decibel ratings. We forced the issue that it is not all about speed. It is about how quiet that bow is. When does the animal hear the release? We were also the first company to list “hunting speed.”

So, let’s get into the speed question then. Is the fastest bow the best bow and how does Whisper Creek handle the “need for speed” mentality of bowhunters today?

Let’s take a look at the 340 to 350-plus fps bows. We were recently experimenting with one of our competitor’s bows the other day. They a have a very nice, fast bow. The brace height is extremely small. It is approximately four inches. Any time you start reducing brace height, you start to reduce accuracy. To get the speed numbers up you have to sacrifice brace height. We are very honest about the speed of our bows. We were the first company to bring in an independent engineer that was not working for our firm. That engineer came in, ran tests and certified that those tests were done and then put his stamp in our catalog.

This is also the reason why we listed our “hunting speed.” We teamed up with Keith “Doc” Ainsley who is a world renowned big game hunter. I sat down with Doc and put together a realistic hunting situation bow setup. We ended up publishing our real world hunting speeds. I think that is really important to the customer. The customer pulls that bow out of the box and shoots it and says, “I should be at 280 feet per second.” He looks and he is. He knows his bow is performing optimally. If he thinks he is supposed to be shooting 330 fps and he can never achieve that, he is wondering why.

What is your relationship with Marlow Larson and how has it affected Whisper Creek?

Marlow and I go back thirty years. He was the primary designer on the original Browning bows. He also has his own bow called the Continental that he shoots in tournaments, but is not available to the public. Marlow has over fifty archery patents. He has taught me a ton over the years. After Andy left to concentrate on his Duracell thing and we became shorthanded, I called Marlow. Marlow is 74 years old and retired, but he still shoots competitively in tournaments. I asked him if he would be willing to come sit down and look at my product line and give me some pointers. He is a brilliant designer and we are working on some new systems and technology that we will be releasing. Marlow is a big part of our team. I am lobbying that Marlow be inducted into the Archery Hall of Fame. He has been a huge contributor to the industry.

So, what does the future hold?

Whisper Creek is entering into its fifth year in production. We are getting to the point where people are just starting to recognize our company. This business is about sustaining yourself. This is a hard market to stay in, with getting into the major retailers and building your dealer network. It is only through staying power, and the merge with Milltree Outdoors, that we have now signed on new rep groups for 2008. We have also launched our new youth bow product, which we are proud to say will have the King’s Mountain Shadow pattern. Those bows will be released for the upcoming Christmas holiday. That is a whole market segment we were not in before. We are releasing a new bow at ATA that should be phenomenal. We have learned a lot over the last four years about what our dealers need and have used this information to refine our product line. We expect 2008 to be our breakout year. We now have dealers who are exclusive Whisper Creak dealers and we are their primary line. That is huge for us. Getting this company going has been a lot of hard work, but I couldn’t be more proud and proud of the people we are involved with. Sure, we have had our struggles, but we have battled through it and taken care of our dealers and consumers. My goal is to be the best customer service bow company in the industry. We are here to help archers until their problem is resolved.

What would be your dream hunt with a bow?

My dream hunt would be hunting in Africa. My passion is design, development and manufacturing. My son Jonathan’s passion would be to take that bow and test it out on as many hunts as he can. Early in my youth, I was a professional race car driver and was captain of the United States Racing Team in South Africa. We went over for two months and raced all over the southern tip of that country. It would be nice to go back to that country and hunt.

Tags: David King, HI32, whisper creek archery

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