Jochen’s first shop: Steve & Jochen (his first apprentice) showing the first coloured saddle (bought by Ralph Lauren for Polo through Spinneybeck).
This is perfect timing – this blog will be appearing the day we begin our 30th year in business. I still have the very first dollar I made (back before there were loonie coins!) hanging in my reception area, and can look back with pride over what we have accomplished since coming over to Canada in 1986.
Sabine and I were visiting Kitchener, where she grew up, on the last leg of our honeymoon in September 1985, when we decided to continue our informal equestrian ‘market survey’ of Ontario. This particular day’s trip took us up to Cedar Valley and I.E.S.S., the beautiful riding facility built by Eva Marie Pracht and her husband Hans and host to the annual “Tournament of Champions” horse show. We were welcomed with great hospitality by the Prachts and ended up spending hours in conversation with them in their lovely home. At the end of the visit Hans Pracht offered me the position of Official Saddler for the World Dressage Championships he was hosting the next summer, and we left them feeling totally elated.
When we returned to our home in Germany we decided to begin proceedings to get me my landed immigrant status – as a Canadian citizen. This was much easier back then for my wife to sponsor me. Then I left to go work with Cliff Barnsby in Walsall, England for a few months while Sabine began her new job as well. We had both quit our jobs four months earlier (me at Passier, Sabine at a large Steel manufacturing company where she was Executive Assistant to the Managing Director) to travel around the world as our honeymoon, so this was to be a short-lived new beginning for both of us.
Canadian Grand Prix Riders: Ashley Holzer, Christian Garweg, Penny Zavitz-Rockx and Gary van der Ploeg in front of our shop in Stouffville clowning around for an ad.
Within 7 months we had packed all our belongings and were back in Kitchener living with her parents and commuting to Cedar Valley (just outside of Newmarket north of Toronto) until we found a home of our own. Our starting inventory included 30 saddles of various makes and models, which I traded my event horse Pirat in to an old friend who owns several tack shops in Germany.
My first shop was just 100 sq.ft off the side of one of the tractor barns and placed within the quarantine zone, so I really couldn’t even meet any of the riding public attending the event, but I did have a chance to meet such icons as Dr. Josef Neckermann (the first world dressage champion ever and the father of Eva Marie Pracht), Dr. Reiner Klimke, and Canada’s own Bonnie Bonnello – who was my actual first client!
Over the course of the next 5 years we underwent several more expansions (up to 1200 sq. ft.), I got my first apprentice, I enticed a fellow saddler over from Germany to work with me, and I made my first custom saddle. I got a contract to build around 100 saddles for Spinneybeck Leather, a company which supplied leather to the interior design industry. They brought out a new line of leather called ‘saddle’ and to promote it we built a saddle in every colour and type of leather that was included. Some of you may have seen some of the woven leather saddles we still have in our shop; Ralph Lauren apparently bought the very first one we made in red leather and put it in his flagship Polo store in NYC. We established saddlery as a registered trade in Ontario and became an authorized training facility. In 1991 we moved from Cedar Valley to Stouffville, where our staff increased to 12 and our building grew to 5000 sq. ft. It was also where we started our equestrian boutique “Caparison” which became one of the leading retail outlets for eclectic horsey stuff.
Together with our business partners: Jochen, Sabine, Cathy and Earl at the Business Excellence Awards where I won Entrepreneur of the Year 2014.
In 1996 we hired our account manager from the TD Bank to take over as General Manager, and Earl Rothery is now Schleese’s CEO and our business partner. This year we are happy to announce the engagement of our children (his son Jordan and my daughter Samantha) – although you might think this is perfect succession planning, in reality neither of them has any inclination to take over the business.
In 1999 we finally bought our own property – where we are now, in Holland Landing between Newmarket and Bradford in the Holland Marsh area.We grew to 45 employees at one time (it fluctuates now around the high 30s) and 8000 sq. ft. Over the years we have developed probably close to 80 different saddle models – some of them more successful than others, but each one with an innovative design feature and upgrades to reflect the changes in the needs of our clients.
Schleese Head Office – Holland Landing, Ontario
We were featured quite regularly on various TV shows – CBC’s On the Road Again, Report on Business, Discovery Channel’s How it’s Made and Harrowsmith Country Life. We were interviewed by local TV personalities (some of which we still see on TV today) and were lucky enough to be the recipient of numerous business awards and nominations for many more. The most prestigious of these was probably being a finalist in the Canada Export Award, winning an Ontario Global Trader’s Award, and an Award of Merit from the Ontario Chamber of Commerce. Sabine has been on the Profit Top 100 list of Women Business Owners in Canada almost every year since 2000, and this year we are a finalist as Manufacturer of the Year in York Region.
John Banbury: our first graduated apprentice started with us in 1989 and is still with us as a Master Saddler.
I tell you this not to brag, but to mention how proud I am of my wonderful employees and the accomplishments we have achieved together. And let me tell you – we have a wonderful group of people working for us! Almost all of them ride, and every one of them is truly passionate about what they do. From the craftsmen in the production shop who build the saddles to the front line who travel all over North America to service our clients at over 250 clinic locations to the in-house administrative staff who deal with logistics, organization, and customer service. All of this from originally when it was only me and Sabine – without any computers!
Just for fun, we decided to compile some interesting numbers from over the past 30 years. For example:
- we have seen over 150,000 horses
- we have built over 20,000 saddles
- we fly over ¼ million miles every year (I just made the million mile club with Air Canada this past year myself!)
Thank you to all of our loyal clients – some of which have been with us almost from day one – and to all of you who may not have ever experienced a Schleese (or may have in the past but for whatever reason left us) – I extend a warm invitation to visit our facility as part of the Horse Experience Tour for the Pan Ams this Friday – and get to know us again!
~ Jochen Schleese CMS, CSFT, CSE, courtesy of Saddlefit 4 Life
