Adirondack chair maker calls holiday
PORTERSVILLE — Friday is more than the first day of summer. It could be the beginning of a new summer holiday.
Or it will be if Adams Manufacturing Corp. of Portersville has anything to do about it. It has declared June 21 as National Adirondack Day.
Adams, part of the Keter Group, is a leading supplier of resin outdoor furniture, holiday hardware and accessories and suction cups and has six warehouse and manufacturing facilities in Portersville, Ellwood City and New Castle.
One of their best-sellers is the Adirondack chair sold nationwide by major retailers such as Lowes, Walmart and Target.
And this got Daniel Stainer, director of marketing at Adams, to thinking.
“I was listening to the news one day and they announced it was National Doughnut Day,” he said.
“If doughnuts can have their own day, so can the iconic Adirondack chair,” said Stainer.
“Why not create a National Adirondack Day on the first day of summer? It would usher in the summer, a season of entertaining and relaxing,” he said.
And the Adirondack chair was created for just that in 1903 by a man named Thomas Lee while he was vacationing in the Adirondack Mountains in 1903. Originally made with a flat seat and back composed of 11 flat wooden boards, it featured wide armrests parallel to the ground.
Adams has since tweaked the chair a bit, adding lumbar and neck supports, making the seating support beams softer to increase comfort and turning out the plastic chair in 15 colors.
“And we can make them in custom colors,” said Stainer. “We can do a yellow for Ace Hardware or college colors for retailers in college towns.”
“We do marketing research to see how well colors perform,” he said.Adams' two top-sellers are the RealComfort Adirondack and its newer model the oversized Big Easy“The new Big Easy is doing extremely well,” said Stainer. “America is getting older and the chair is designed with larger overall proportions.” The Big Easy also comes with a retractable cup holder and a more vertically upright “ergonomic” back to make getting in and out completely effortless.The Big Easy was the result of listening to the customers, said Matt Goodworth, Adams product designer.“The Big Easy was the result of asking the right questions,” said Goodworth. “A lot of people, older people, complained that while the Adirondack was very relaxed, they wanted something taller, more upright. So, we made a chair that satisfies these needs.”Goodworth and his colleagues took nine months to come up with the Big Easy design.“Ninety percent of the design happens fairly quick,” he said. “It's the last 10 percent of the details that take up 50 percent of the time.”Not only must the chair be designed efficiently, so must the machinery that will make the chair, he added.The chairs' popularity is keeping the Adams manufacturing plant busy.“The chairs are made in a machine very much like a Play-Doh machine,” Stainer said. “Little pellets are melted and pushed into a mold. The plant runs 24/7, 365 days a year and employs between 250 and 300 people divided into day and night shifts. We hire more people to deal with peak demand.”
Stainer said, “We're making them year-round. The biggest selling period is March through June, but this has been the rainiest spring in 125 years, so the selling season will get pushed back some.“But some markets are year-round — Florida, Arizona, California and the coastal areas,” he said.While Stainer admits the declaration of Adirondack Day was a little tongue-in-cheek, he noted “we live in an age of social media, trying to create a viral buzz.”“We're planting the seed that Adams is behind this,” said Stainer.“We wanted to put more focus on the role of Adirondack chairs in people's lives. It really is an iconic product,” Stainer said.Goodworth said he applauds the holiday initiative for the Adirondack chair.“They are surprising for what they are. Nothing can transform an outdoor area like an Adirondack can,” said Goodworth. “They can make an area fun and inviting and that's pretty good for a $19 item.”And who knows what's in store for next year? Could Adirondack Day become the next annual tradition like Grandparents Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day?“Next year is another discussion because there is more time to plan,” said Stainer.
