Burley Design adds 16 employees to work force.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

Five months after buying Burley Design, which makes bicycle trailers in west Eugene, the new owner has made some key hires.

Among them are several executives who had worked at Burley years ago when it was a worker-owned cooperative, and are returning to try to help the business now being run as a privately held corporation.

In September, local businessman Michael Coughlin bought the financially shaky Burley, which had morphed from co-op to corporation to attract a buyer.

He ended up keeping only 42 employees of the 97-employee work force. Including the 16 new hires, the company now has 57 employees.

`I am very excited to have four members of the Old Burley cooperative returning to the team," Coughlin said in prepared remarks. "It was clear that old Burley had many key employees that will be able to play a strong role in the company's future."

Amanda Schulze, Burley's new marketing manager, said the staff changes and transition to new ownership are going well.

"The people who have joined on have been well received by the people who were already on," she said, "and the people who worked for old Burley that continue to work for new Burley see that things are turning around and there's hope. They're on board with a positive attitude."

Since September, Coughlin has been busy revamping the company to cut costs and improve efficiencies.

As for production, "the only thing that's changed is that the sewing (of the trailers' fabric panels ) has been outsourced to Salem and Mexico," Schulze said. "Everything else is assembled here. The hinges are made here, the sewing goes through quality control."

The company is considering outsourcing more of the production work, she said, adding that "it's really difficult to compete with our current structure." Details on how further outsourcing might affect the Eugene operation were not available.

KEY HIRES

At Burley Design, a bike trailer manufacturer in west Eugene

John Boettcher: Chief operations officer and chief financial officer. Former financial/operational manager at Emporium, Ivy Hi-Lift and Legendary Coach. Formerly worked with Burley owner Michael Coughlin at CPA firm Coopers and Lybrand.

Brian Roddy: Vice president of engineering and product development. Worked at Burley 2001-2002 as R&D manager and 1999-2002 as an engineer. Worked at Trek Bicycle Corp. as an engineer 1996-1999. Co-founder of Rolf Prima, a Eugene company that produces bicycle wheels using innovative spoke technology it invented.

Val Hoyle: Vice president of sales and customer service. Formerly worked as international sales manager at Burley for six years. Also formerly worked in international sales at Trek Bicycle. Serves as chairwoman of the District Export Committee for Oregon and the Federal Advisory Board for International Trade for Oregon and Southwest Washington.