Simon Barnett, founder of OBO sports gear, has never played hockey in his life but that hasn’t stopped him building a world-beating business around the game.

Based in Palmerston North, OBO has built its reputation in a niche market – protective clothing, helmets, sticks and bags for field hockey goalkeepers.

FINDING THE GOAL: Simon Barnett has netted success with OBO, the firm he and Robert Whitfield set up to sell sports gear. They have also branched into specialised hockey equipment.

Mr Barnett and designer Rob Whitfield started researching and developing the specialised equipment in 1992 before launching OBO products in Australia in 1994.

Their protective gear is based on closed-cell foam technology, originally developed in Britain, which is light and less bulky than more traditional products. That means the goalkeeper can go from being “the fatty in the goal” to playing a more agile and aggressive game.

Mr Barnett jokes that his entrepreneurial career began at school – he traded in frogs before moving on to making and selling table-tennis tables and bats. That business continued while he studied marketing at Massey University, something he still lectures on.

Though Mr Barnett has never played hockey and would be “far too frightened” to go in goal, he used to import hockey gear.

When he failed to secure a licence to import closed-cell gear, he and Mr Whitfield decided to make it themselves.

And OBO’s catchphrase, “Goalkeepers are amazing people”, has proved to be true in more than one way.

The company now exports to 42 countries and holds about a 60 per cent share of the field hockey goalie market, selling to eight-year-olds and up to international players.

“In the last Olympics, in Athens, 77 per cent of the national goalkeepers were using OBO.”

The company employs 20 people in its Palmerston North factory, with about five head-office staff. It also has agents and distributors around the world.

Though OBO’s more high-value, uniquely designed products are made here, some of its lower-cost, more common items come from China.
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OBO has taken turnover to between $3 million and $4 million and last month the company launched a new range of protective cricket gear, which is already being sold throughout New Zealand, Britain and South Africa.

“In India and Pakistan, there are basically two cities that are largely set up to make cricket protection gear, with thousands of people involved in the industry. If we are right about the gear we’ve got, and there’s a lot of good noise coming from people, then there’s a major expansion.”

Last year, Mr Barnett says, they invested about $500,000 in research and development with the help of a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise grant.

“I know it’s not fashionable to talk about them (grants) at the moment but, when you are trying to do really ambitious things and take on the world with new products from a small company in New Zealand, that assistance is really important.”

Dominion Post article, 7 March 2005. link