The Kid in the Candy Store

by Pete Robbins

As the National Sales Manager for SPRO, Syd Rives works with a veteran pro staff to develop products that send major waves through the industry. You might think that the company runs itself and that the toughest decision he has to make each day is whether to take the company plane south to El Salto to chase big green fish or north to Erie to get his bronzeback fix.

You'd be wrong.

"It's funny that you should mention that," he laughed. "In the last year, I probably haven't gotten out on the water to fish more than 15 days. Sure I go down to the pond to test out prototype lures, but I'm not there for more than 30 minutes before I have to get back to the office."

But he hasn't lost the fire – building a better mousetrap is his obsession. There's no rest on the horizon and it doesn't matter because he wouldn't take it anyway.

So it goes for the 27 year old wunderkind of the tackle industry. Only a few years out of the University of Georgia and this Macon native controls the purse strings and design decisions of signature lures for established national bass pros including Dean Rojas, Gary Klein, Mike McClelland and OT Fears.

When Rojas won at Toho, Rives couldn't drink a beer legally.

When McClelland won back-to-back BASS Central Opens, Rives couldn't vote.

When Fears won the BASS Superstars tournament on the Illinois River, Rives wasn't in high school.

And when Klein first hit the BASS circuit, Rives wasn't even born yet.

Where the heck did this kid come from and why is he qualified to run a major lure company? Is he fishing's version of the Rain Man? Does he have incriminating pictures of some company bigwig?

By his own admission, he's "living the dream." The question is when he's going to pinch himself and come back to reality.

Prep for the Biz

Rives has to fill the big shoes of former mentor Tim Norman, who recently left for a similar position at Tru Tungsten, but he brings with him a curriculum vitae that makes him perfectly suited for the job.

"I grew up hunting and fishing with my father, first in farm ponds and then I graduated to the bigger lakes," he said. "At first I wanted to do the whole professional fisherman thing, but I realized that I was more of a businessman. I'm still very competitive, but now my competition is to be the best at the business side of the fishing industry. I want SPRO to be one of the most prominent tackle companies around, and we're trying to build toward that."

When he talks about competing, he gets the steely glint in his eye of a young Roland Martin, but from a distance, he still looks more like a mop-headed fraternity brother than a corporate stud. Only recently did he have to get a sport coat to begin the transformation from college kid to man about town. He'd probably be more comfortable in a varsity jacket.

In the 60's, the flower children made "Never trust anyone over 30" into a mantra, but Guntersville, Alabama is a long way from Haight-Ashbury. The industry is notoriously resistant to change, and equally resistant to newcomers. But baby-faced Syd made the transition from college to retail to corporate as smooth as butter. His affect may be aw shucks, but deep down he's all business.

Preferred Professionals

At the average sport show, you'd probably push right by Rives, assuming him to be a young bass club member or perhaps the son of one of the SPRO pros. But if you've seen Dean whack 'em on Kermit on Saturday morning, then you need to take note of what Syd has to say. While Rojas may be the one manipulating the little green muppet on the water, the bottom line is, no Rives, no frog.

He doesn't take credit for establishing SPRO's pro-driven business model, but he makes no bones about the fact that the pro staffers are critical to the company's success.

"It drives retail a lot," he said. "I can't really give you a percentage, but if you put a pro's name on a bait and he does well in a tournament, that is huge for us. When Dean was on three episodes of Bassmasters in a row, fishing the Bronzeye frog each time, that really kicked off our sales.

You don't have to be smarter than a fifth grader to figure out why the SPRO model works. Find people who are good and let them do what they're best at. Sometimes the choice is obvious: "Rojas is known for fishing frogs. Who better to help us develop a new frog? Mike McClelland is from the stickbait capital of the world. What they have in common is that they're great guys to work with and you know if they put their name on it it's going to be right."

The Young Gun has it figured out, the world is his oyster and he knows it.

"Three R's"

The mere fact that SPRO has a talented stable of pros wouldn't mean a thing if they didn't produce the baits to back them up. If you don't remember some of the pro-endorsed failures and gimmick lures of the past, then you haven't been fishing long. As a group, bass anglers can be fooled once, but if you burn 'em once, you won't get their money again. Even further, if you burn them bad, your name will be mud at the bait shops and on the internet chat boards. Call it corporate death.

Even if you produce a decent product, marketing failures can produce lackluster results. There's a lot of weight on young Syd's shoulders. As the public face of SPRO corporate, the blame for any failure will be leveled squarely at him. But he's not afraid, and he's boiled down the recipe to a simple equation. If you can count to three, you can remember his keys:

"It's takes three things to make it a success," Rives said. "The Right pro promoting the Right bait at the Right time."

But it's not just a matter of deciding when to pull the trigger and place something new on the market. Rives doesn't conceive of a product, send it to his engineers and factory, and put his feet up on the desk eating bon bons the rest of the day. He has to deal with some of the pickiest pros on the planet.

For example, you might think that there aren't too many permutations of what a frog could look like. Once again, you'd be wrong. Rives noted that Rojas is remarkably exacting when it comes to producing a new amphibian.

"Don't get me started on that," he said. "He had opinions on everything from the contour lines on the outside of the frog, to the thickness of the plastic, to how many strands of rubber the legs should have. Even the colors and how they fade into each other, he wanted everything to be just right."

No lure is ever good enough in its first rendition, he added, noting that the average bait takes at least ten revisions and a full year to go from prototype to market.

"We start out with a shape sample, go through three or four of those, then three or four action samples, then color samples and production samples. There are at least ten steps before you have anything near the finished product."

Fortunately for Rives, his favorite part of the job is the research and refinement. He's the type of guy who would be doing the same thing even if he wasn't making a dime for it. He prays that his boss never finds that out.

Do the pros, some of whom are his elders by decades, ever try to bully him?

"Sometimes it's hard for me to say no to them," he admitted. "But in the end, they know I have to do what's in the best interest of the company. They realize that. They may temporarily get upset, but they know it's business and we can usually figure out a compromise."

Translated, that last paragraph means, "I can hold my own."

The kid is all right.

When Does He Rest?

Tim Norman's departure was not necessarily unexpected, but the hiring of the boyish Rives did send shockwaves through some quarters of the industry. What was the back story? Had Norman left him adrift, on the verge of disaster? Did he have incriminating pictures of someone important? Was SPRO like the Titanic, with ex-captain Norman headed for a little R&R, leaving his young ensign to go down with the ship?

No knock on Tim, but SPRO seems to be cranking along better than ever. Rojas is building a full frog family, with the King Daddy Bronzeye joining five new colors of non-steroid enhanced Kermits. McClelland came, saw and conquered in Florida. And the new Little John crankbait is going to rip lips from spring through fall.

"Tim was essentially training me to do his job for two years and I'm very thankful for all of his guidance. He never threw me in the fire and he always had my back," Rives said, modestly.

"Now I just take it one day at a time. I learn something new every day. You've got to keep your head up. There will always be something somebody's upset about, but the key is not to let them get you down."

So on the rare days when there are no upset customers or retailers, can he then put his feet up? Again, the answer is no.

"I'm always calling on customers and sales reps," he said. "In a smaller company like this, you can't be one-dimensional. You have to do a lot of different things. I really have two jobs – design and sales."

"I’m working my tail off. I want to be the best at what I do and I want to be in this industry long term. I'm here to stay."

Slow down, kid. You're making the rest of us look bad.