Dustin Grosz, president of both Star Trac and StairMaster, discussed the consolidation when Star Trac recently announced it was shutting down its plant in California and moving production to its Land America plant in China. The StairMaster headquarters will house executive, administrative and customer service functions, such as finance, IT, human resources and accounting, for both StairMaster and Star Trac.

“We worked very quickly on where the best place would be to consolidate the business,” Grosz says. “One of the options that I started looking at [after taking over as Star Trac president in March] was consolidating the back end of Star Trac and StairMaster. This very quickly became apparent as a viable option.”

Grosz said earlier this month that Star Trac will continue to have its headquarters in Irvine for its marketing team, product development team, warehousing and shipping of goods, as well as a showroom.

Five executives from Star Trac are expected to move from Star Trac’s Irvine, CA, headquarters to Vancouver. The Columbia River Economic Development Council (CREDC), based in Vancouver, aided Star Trac with relocation costs by securing $100,000 from Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire’s strategic reserve fund.

CREDC also is working with the Southwest Washington Workforce Development Council by assisting StairMaster in recruiting employees for the new available jobs in Vancouver, says Jeanie Ashe, director of business recruitment for the CREDC.

Ashe says StairMaster executives, who already were located in Vancouver, had been traveling to and from Irvine. The relocation costs will aid those executives, Ashe says.

“They have a very talented workforce down in Irvine, and they didn’t want to lose key personnel,” Ashe says.

In a statement released by the CREDC, Grosz said that Vancouver, whose metro area includes Portland, OR, met the company’s needs.

“The Portland-Vancouver metro is the nation’s hub for outdoor and fitness equipment enthusiasts, which allows us to have access to the type of workforce we want to grow and shape our company,” Grosz said.

Beginning next Wednesday, June 1, the StairMaster headquarters will be in a 26,000-square-foot building that had housed Vancouver city employees, who will move to a new city hall building downtown. StairMaster had operated in a 10,000-square-foot building with about 23 employees.

Grosz told the Portland Business Journal that StairMaster exceeded its goal of $25 million in revenue by 12 percent over the past year. He also told the newspaper that he estimated Star Trac’s sales this year will be about 40 percent lower than the $175 million the company generated two years ago.

Written By: Stuart Goldman May 26, 2001

source: http://clubindustry.com/inside_manufacturers/star-trac-stairmaster-consolidating-washington-state-20110526/

Additionally, more exercise equipment and sporting good stores have started to sell products designed by penny-pinching, voracious manufacturers. These corporate giant have only one intention when designing exercise equipment and that is based around their intention of making sure that the fitness equipment they produce is appealing to the aesthetic senses of their potential customers, without any disregard for the reliability and overall quality of the product itself.

Needless to say that with an attitude like that, the parts used, such as the drive and incline motors, belts, flywheels, pedals, suspension material, rollers, and more, are not premium, high quality parts. Now to the naked eye it is nearly impossible to tell the difference between a nice suspension system or not. For example, how can one differentiate between a good and bad motor. The reason we can’t is because the motors are covered by a cosmetics shroud and its exact specifications can only be found by uncovering the motors, though taking off the protective shrouds that cover them, which almost nobody ever does.

A legitimate fitness equipment company that delivers what it promises, is Star Trac, and their resume is filled with decades of hard work and accolades. Since 1974, they have supplied gyms and residences with user-defined, dependable and innovative exercise equipment. While the majority of fitness equipment manufacturers assembling products overseas, Star Trac’s manufacturing plant is located right here in the U.S.A. Star Trac has earned state-wide and national respect for building a 100,000 sq. foot warehouse in Irvine, California, and have been labeled a benefactor of the community, due to the number of gainfully employed, and tax paying citizens, that they have created as a result of international headquarters being located there. Every day it seems as though their equipment is showing up more and more at health club facilities and gyms. There are several reasons for their progressive and what has now become epic, takeover of the fitness equipment industry. Here we will explore the history of Star Trac an an international provider of fitness equipment and we will explore the reasons behind their recent dominance.

First of all, Star Trac claims that 3 million people, across 70 different countries, use Star Trac gym equipment, every day of the year, in home gyms and health clubs. Star Trac manufactures elliptical machines, treadmill, stationary exercise bikes, spin cycles and strength fitness equipment. Although they dominate the commercial fitness equipment industry, Star Trac has a major strong-hold in the home fitness equipment industry too. The Star Trac commercial line of fitness equipment includes their ST Pro series of treadmills with built in cooling fans, ergonomically correct and structurally sound stationary upright and recumbent exercise bikes, elliptical trainers that mimic the natural stride length of its users, award winning spin bikes, free weight equipment and 3 separate lines of adjustable weight strength equipment.

***Call 800-990-1108 for pricing, reviews, shipping lead times and all other questions regarding Star Trac Fitness Equipment.***