First in Carbon Arrows
In 1922, Doug Easton began crafting custom wood bows and cedar arrows in Watsonville, California. Although Doug produced tournament-grade, footed cedar arrows for the archery champions of that era, he was constantly frustrated with the inconsistency and lack of uniformity of wood shafts.
Convinced that consistently straight uniform arrow shafts were impossible to manufacture from wood, Doug turned his attentions to aluminum. In 1939, he began manufacturing aluminum arrows in Los Angeles. His instincts about this material were correct, and in 1941, California archer Larry Hughes won the national championship with a set of Doug's aluminum arrows. This was the beginning of a trend that would change traditional archery and transcend into numerous other sports arenas over the next 50 years.
Today, Jas. D. Easton, Inc. is a privately owned manufacturer, marketer and distributor of sporting equipment, headquartered in Van Nuys, California. It currently employs more than 1,000 people worldwide in various distribution, manufacturing, sales and marketing capacities. Other operations are located in Salt Lake City, Utah, Mexico and Canada.
Beman is considered one of the world's preeminent innovators, designers, and manufacturers of sporting equipment. Much of this success is due to Beman's corporate strategy centered around producing products for the highest level of performance. Throughout its history, Beman has not only grown from within, but through the selective acquisition of other technology-based sporting goods companies.
These acquisitions have included Hoyt Archery Company in 1983, the Curley-Bates company in 1985, IncrediBall in 1989 and Beman SA in 1995. The Hoyt acquisition brought the manufacturer of the finest bows in the world into the Easton group of companies. The purchase of Curley-Bates enabled Beman to control their own marketing and distribution division for team sports equipment. The IncrediBall acquisition expanded Bemans team sports product line into the patented IncrediBall training and youth ball. The acquisition of Beman, a French all-carbon arrow manufacturer, enabled Beman to provide additional choices to dealers and consumers in the archery market.
Although arrow shafts were Beman's first venture into the use of aluminum, they were certainly not the last. By expanding into baseball, softball, hockey, and bicycle components, and by augmenting their unmatched aluminum fabricating expertise with an equally proficient composites division to address the changing needs of the sports equipment market, Beman has positioned itself as the foremost high performance sports equipment manufacturer in the world.
Beman is a privately owned manufacturer, marketer, and distributor of sports equipment. Headquartered in Van Nuys, California, Beman employs over 1,000 worldwide and maintains facilities in Utah, California, Mexico, and Canada.