American sole; N. Brookfield company reinvents shoes.

Byline: Craig S. Semon

NORTH BROOKFIELD - If you said to Christopher D. Favreau that his mother wears army boots, chances are he wouldn't be offended. If fact, he'd probably be delighted - as long as the boots his mother was wearing were made with Vibram rubber soles.

Mr. Favreau is vice president of technical development at Quabaug Corp., the North American manufacturer of Vibram rubber-soling materials for various types of shoes made by other companies, including Red Wing, Justin, Belleville, Addison, Danner, Wolverine and Rocky boots. Quabaug also makes rubber outsoles for more than 95 percent of all North American armed forces - all from the privately owned factory in the center of North Brookfield.

"Almost every (American) soldier in Afghanistan and Iraq are wearing soles made in Massachusetts," Mr. Favreau said proudly.

In May, Quabaug received national attention on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for FetchDog's Chewy Shoe toys, featuring a red, white and blue shoe sole made of rugged natural rubber by Vibram Pet Products. The sales of the dog toy help support Puppies Behind Bars initiative "Dog Tags: Service Dogs for Those Who've Served Us." Under this program, which has become a project of actress Glenn Close, prison inmates are trained to raise puppies to become service dogs for wounded veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

In another initiative, with soles designed by Quabaug, Vibram has teamed up with Simms Fishing Products in Bozeman, Mont., to produce the new StreamTread wading boots line for fly fishermen. The Quabaug soles make it

difficult for microorganisms to attach to the boots and be moved to other streams and rivers, cutting down on the problem of invasive species.

"Traditionally, wading boots use felt as the outsole. It works very well because there was a mechanical traction element and it would actually scrub the surface of the rock and allow you to gain some traction," Mr. Favreau said. "The bad news is, at the same time, it has that textile weave and all those aquatic nuisance species would get up into the little microspores of the felt and breed or procreate or just survive. If you went from river to river, or state to state, you would actually transfer that disease from one river to another. It would spread and spread and spread."

Simms approached Mr. Favreau about converting all its boots from felt to rubber soles.

"We did a lot of field testing, laboratory development - myself included," said Mr. Favreau. "We worked on mud patterns. We worked on chemical combination to get the best performance - sticky rubber on wet rock in rivers - in that particular environment."

After two years of lab and field testing, Mr. Favreau and his research and development team of chemists, designers and engineers came up with the new Vibram Idrogrip compound that sticks to wet, algae-covered rocks to keep fishermen's feet glued to every rock they touch. The Vibram outsole is featured on six Simms wading boots with prices beginning at $129.95.

Quabaug is part of the global Vibram family operation, which also includes a sales and marketing office in Concord, sales and marketing production throughout Europe, mainly in Italy, and production facilities in China, where StreamTread boots are made.

Mr. Favreau, a licensed hunting and fishing guide in Nova Scotia with a size 13 foot, is the consummate sole man when it comes to his products. Not only is he instrumental in developing the sole from the lugs to the compound, but he field-tested the wading boot during the two-year process.

"What I love about the job is that I can work on something like that with a whole team of people, bring everybody's talent into the mix," Mr. Favreau said. "I can put it on my feet. I can go fishing. I know it works. I can take them off, put on another pair of shoes in the same exact river, the same rocks and see the difference."

It's not unusual for the company's chemists to create something in the lab and for Mr. Favreau and his creative team to head out for the afternoon to field test products, as they did with what would become the soles of the StreamTread wading boots, in the Swift River in Belchertown and the Quinebaug River in Sturbridge.

Mr. Favreau said his wife doesn't think field-testing is work, but he thinks otherwise.

"It's very important work, actually," Mr. Favreau said, "because if I don't really know what's going on, it's just talk."

Contact Craig Semon by e-mail at [e-mail].

ART: PHOTOS

CUTLINE: (1) Quabaug Corp. employee Carl Bigos of Warren assembles Vibram soles for hiking boots. (2) Christopher D. Favreau, vice president of technical development at Quabaug Corp., holds fishing boots made with rubber that resists aquatic species.

PHOTOG: T&G Staff Photos/TOM RETTIG