my name is Sal Glesser my wife and I started Spyderco in 1976 we settled in
Colorado in 1978 and we've been in Golden Colorado ever since what I do
primarily now is product development and some social media and Eric handles the
day-to-day on a daily basis I'm Eric Glesser I work with the design and
another aspects of Spyderco official part of the company my whole life when
we first began with Spyderco we were creating and building knife sharpeners
so we studied how to make things sharp which is where we think the real knife
begins we designed from the edge out then because I'd been playing with
knives a long time we created what we thought was a new concept in knives we
figured out a way to open up a knife with one hand by putting the hole in the
blade we developed a clip on the side of the knife which allowed you to eliminate
the sheath and clip the knife to the top of a pocket which gave you more
convenient access to the knife and we just kept going from there we're working
on hundreds of different knives at any given time and the knife market is huge
it goes from little knives to big knives and all purposes in between and so the
inspirations across the board we're not just making pretty pictures and coming
out with them we're still making reliable high performance with great
quality and materials good designs good designers still bringing that that nice
package to the market but the inspiration is on all different levels
across the board usually there's a purpose in mind when we create most of
the product to start with a design you know you're drawing something and then
you take that piece of paper we turn it into a plastic model and we use that
plastic model and we refine from there once the pattern of the knife is
established then we'll get into the materials we have to pay attention to
the performance of the knife but we also have to pay
attention to where we're going to make it usually the different factories and
the different locations around the world have different skills and abilities some
may be good at this some may be good at something else some may work with a
material that others don't there's no two factories that are created equal and
and we like that we like using sources from all around the world it gives us
that variety we think of the knife as a tool so if you're gonna use a tool
around areas where you have a have to have a lot of edge retention then
certain steels will work better than others if you're working around salt
water then there's some Steel's will work better around salt water bigger
knives used for chopping or smaller knives used for whittling it pretty much
all starts with the steel that you're going to use and that's where we start
our design usually we try to have materials in the country that we're
making the product you know if it's american-made product we usually have an
American steel go into that product it's not a rule and it's not across the board
but but for a generality we try to use the material sourced in that country and
then oftentimes factories are more comfortable with some materials and
others I'm particularly in the steel grinding we have a project we call the
Mule Team where we work with different foundries to get a hold of a small
quantity of a special steel and we'll make a fixed blade knife out of that
steel using the same pattern all the time but changing the steel every three
months testing for the product is very important you know people's livelihoods
depend on a lot of our product when it comes to lab testing I think we have
some of the best we we have a lot of information it's computer-generated so
that we get exact distances and exact weights and and and great imagery and
and and we can really break down the testing of that product and then we do
real-world testing where we go outside with video cameras and testing equipment
and we do a lot more real-world most of it we record and go back and check it
and then we go from there I guess you know it's not all about
making money it's about making good carrying about what our customer thinks
and wants and we try to serve that market I must have talked to 50 people
today just discussing prototypes which is we we make 30 or 40 new knives every
year and one of the things that we like to do is show prototypes and concept
models that shows like this one where we can get good feedback from knife
knowledgeable people you know one of my favorite things is when people tell me
about their knife you know that they pull it out of their pocket and and they
they show me what they've been carrying there's not a knife that I can't pick up
and look at and I can see their impression on it whether the way they
carried it and scratched the clip to their resharpening skills my I love
picking up that knife that consumers been using that he appreciates and he
shares that with me and I get to share it back and that's one of my my favorite
aspects as well just recently you know an open discussion we've been having the
last year is people taking apart their knives and I'm sure people that are
watching this might remember these discussions online and we're now going
in a new direction that's where we'll engineer our knives better for
disassembly or or aftermarket parts and and and be more prepared for the
customer in the future that's our job as a supplier we work for the consumer and
so I have to be involved in listening and knowing what's going on because
ultimately the customer is the boss and we have to be there to perform for them
and so you know I I am I enjoy it I have hours of watching YouTube videos
there's there's probably a lot of people out there they've made YouTube videos
that have no idea that I'm sitting around watching them but I enjoy them
very much the negativity is there but I'm not getting that caught up in it I
mean sometimes yes naturally it can it some of it can bother you but I like it
and we have to watch the markets for example 10 years ago in England and the
entire UK they passed laws that changed everything you weren't allowed to carry
a knife that locked you weren't allowed to carry
a knife that who had a blade length of more than three inches and so these were
new parameters so we we knew that that would probably be a trend in the future
or certainly in Europe and so we started developing slip-joint knives for that
market and so a lot of things that we do we try to look ahead in the doing of it
and that's so we're not only creating a lot of the new but we're we're pretty
well into it by the time it becomes mainstream yeah there's there's a lot
going on in the horizon I'm really excited for the US production in the
last few years we've really started to overcome some humps in production
and quality and we're getting better all the time and I love that they're you
know the us facility is pushing all the time there's a lot going on though we
have new products that were venturing out into for completely new markets one
of the things I'm enjoying too is getting the product to the consumer you
know when I was a kid it was the brick-and-mortar store the mom-and-pop
store and there were hundreds of them across the country and you could go into
a knife store and talk to somebody you know nowadays trying to find a knife
store anywhere it's pretty difficult there I think there's probably less than
50 in the country and and it's gone to internet-based sales and it's a changing
economy and commerce and I still enjoying the fact that we're producing
this great product and we're able to still bring it to the consumer and
through all this evolution I mean just I'm sitting here at knife Center which
was our first e-commerce internet dealer I'm you know my father jumped on the
forums in the 90s and so we're already always thinking about that future in the
direction that our industry is going and we have to be ever won't be a part of it