Wall Street Journal March 11, 1997 This Gizmo Grips, Clips, Folds, Bends -- and Sells By JONATHAN WELSH Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL When Dave Scherer, a photographer, ran low on wheel spokes while trekking across Siberia on his mountain bike back in 1993, he didn't despair even though he was at least 1,000 miles from the nearest bike shop. Instead, he used an odd compact tool to craft a usable spoke from two broken ones. He used the gadget's pliers to twist the pieces together, trimmed the cobbled spoke to size with the wire cutters and used a built-in screwdriver to adjust the spoke and straighten the wheel. "Our journey could have ended right there," Mr. Scherer says. "The tool really saved us." The odd tale of mechanical derring-do is just one of many told by faithful users of the Leatherman Pocket Survival Tool (http://www.leatherman.com/). The four-inch-long implement, which combines a needle-nose pliers, four screwdrivers, a wire cutter, a file, a can opener, an awl, a ruler and a knife, all for about $45, has developed a cultlike following and inspired a raft of imitators. Invented in the late 1970s, the Leatherman initially appealed mostly to outdoors enthusiasts. Then actor Keanu Reeves used a Leatherman to pry open elevator doors in the 1994 film "Speed;" host Jay Leno and actor Kevin Bacon bantered about the tool on the Tonight Show. Last year, more than a million Leathermans were sold in sporting-goods and outdoor-supply stores, all made by closely held Leatherman Tool Group Inc. of Portland, Ore. The tool and the company get their name from Tim Leatherman, a mechanical engineer who thought up the gizmo during a 1975 jaunt to Europe. "It was a low-budget trip and I wound up doing a lot of work on our rental car and hotel plumbing," he says. "My only tool, a Boy Scout knife, would have been more useful with pliers built in. So I started thinking along those lines." Mr. Leatherman says he spent several years developing the tool on his own, then pitched his design to tool companies, which showed little interest. Some of those same companies became his competitors years later. Though he hadn't planned to go into manufacturing, Mr. Leatherman began crafting the tools in his home shop and later hired a few employees as demand increased. Through the 1980s, the Leatherman was practically alone in its odd "multitool" market. (The elaborate pocket knives made by Swiss Army Brands Inc. in Shelton, Conn., are generally smaller and don't include pliers.) Mr. Leatherman says he was pleased with his small but profitable operation that was selling about 300,000 units a year. Things changed dramatically in 1991. Gerber Legendary Blades, a Portland, Ore.-based unit of the Finnish tool-making company, Fiskars Oy Ab, began selling its Multi-Plier, a slightly larger folding tool with plier jaws that slide into place with the flick of the wrist. Closely held SOG Specialty Knives Inc. soon followed with its Paratool, which looks somewhat like the Leatherman but has a different folding mechanism. So far, at least, the newcomers are boosting consumer awareness about the entire "multitool" market. Total sales for multitools rose to $200 million in the U.S. in 1996 from about $100 million in 1993. Industry experts expect sales to top $600 million by 2000. Leatherman remains the market leader in the U.S., with roughly one-quarter of U.S. sales. The multitools continue to multiply. Buck Knives Inc., an El Cajon, Calif., maker of hunting knives and related products, recently introduced its own version. Swiss Army Brands plans to enter the market later this year with a model that will "blow the category away," a spokeswoman says. The mounting competition forced Leatherman to reevaluate its own marketing. "We began thinking more broadly about the tool's uses," says company spokesman Bob Witeck. Last year, it began taking out full-page ads in magazines, including Outside, Outdoor Life and Men's Journal, with users describing how the trusty Leatherman got them out of trouble at home and in the field. Arguably the most dramatic is the account of pilot Mike Harder. When the landing gear stuck on the small plane he was flying over Alaska in 1992, Mr. Harder says he used his Leatherman to disassemble part of the control panel; he then climbed into the bowels of the plane where he found the culprit: a broken cable. He gingerly pulled the cable's frayed end to bring the gear down, just as his fuel supply dwindled. Previously, Leatherman ads were far less exciting, not much more than small classified ads in the backs of a handful of magazines. The company also has increased distribution to large consumer chains, including Wal Mart, Home Depot and Sports Authority. And the company decided that it liked being featured on TV so much that it hired UPP Entertainment Marketing, a product-placement agency in Burbank, Calif., to get the Leatherman cast in more roles. UPP helped set up appearances on television shows, including NBC's "The Profiler," where a character recently used one to defuse a bomb, and NBC's "Mad About You," where the characters frequent a hardware store. Leatherman continues to fight off what it says are the most blatant "knockoffs," including the ToolzAll, a model unveiled last year by Cooper Industries Inc., a $5 billion-a-year maker of tools and industrial products based in Houston. Leatherman filed a lawsuit and won a preliminary injunction, keeping Cooper from selling its version in the U.S. until the case is completed. Cooper has filed an appeal. Cooper says its tool has certain unique features that distinguish it from the Leatherman. Mr. Leatherman alleges that Cooper even used retouched photos of his tool to represent ToolzAll in early promotional material. Cooper declined to discuss the photos, but has agreed to stop using them. Faithful Leatherman users say price isn't the issue. "Leatherman is seen as the original, and that's a big part of its appeal," says Charles Gillette, a New Jersey State Police officer and fishing enthusiast. He recalls using his to snip the barb off a fishing hook and remove it from his finger with a minimum of pain and tissue damage. "It wasn't a life-or-death case, but it felt like one for a while." Copyright © 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.