220@NAP

Okay, Bo, you asked for it, LOL. It's long—but I think to understand the history behind the company itself—you really have to have a full understanding of the man behind NAP himself:

Behind the words, the products, and the company, is founder and President Andy Simo. He is the leader and fountainhead behind NAP. His every move seems aimed at improvement.

"When I started the company in 1971, my wife, Cherie, and I wrestled for some time with selecting a name for our new business. But when I finally asked myself what it was I really wanted to do, the words just fell in place. I wanted to design and manufacture new archery products—actually create products that were different and better. First and foremost, they had to be products that would make my own shooting better and more fun. Then I wanted to transfer those feelings, through my products, to my customers."

One way to gain insight into Andy Simo, and his remarkable success with NAP, is to view the long road he's taken to get where he is today.

Andy was born in a small mountain village in what used to be known as Czechoslovakia. The year was 1938 and Hitler was only months away from invading nearby Poland. World War II loomed on the horizon.

"Our little village was in a broad valley surrounded by tall mountains," recalls Andy. "There was a river running through the center of the village, which had a population of about 400. My family had a small house, just two rooms. But we were comfortable and I remember life as being pretty good. Everyone was pretty self-sufficient. We farmed, we made our own cloth out of flax grass. We sewed our own clothing. No one had to go to a store except to buy salt and a few other essentials. I remember, as a kid, roaming the fields and small farms with my trusty slingshot, and sometimes with small bows that I made from willow branches cut from along the river."

"With the German invasion of Poland in 1939, things began to change, even in our remote valley. When I was four, I watched German tanks and troops march down the length of the valley and right through the village. The war had come to us."

"Before I was born, my father had immigrated to America. The plan was that my mother and I would follow shortly. But when Hitler's Panzer Divisions marched into Poland, everything changed. Because of the war, my father couldn't get back into the country."

Reluctantly, Andy's father eventually settled near Chicago and began a small business.

"In early 1947, he decided to go back into Czechoslovakia. He sold his business in America with the idea that he return to the old country and his family, and open up his business there. The war had ended, but when he arrived he discovered that the communists were taking over and that private businesses were being nationalized. So in October of 1948 he packed us up and we all immigrated to America."

The family settled in Cicero, Illinois. Andy was ten at the time and spoke no English at all. In 1948, Andy's father opened a community tavern.

"For me, the most significant thing was that the tavern was located next door to a hobby shop, and in that hobby shop were model airplanes. At age 12 I became absolutely enamored with model airplanes."

Andy Simo took to model airplanes like a duck takes to water. In those days, model airplanes came in kits and nothing was prefabricated.

After graduation from high school, Andy Simo went to Purdue and four and a half years later graduated from that university with the aeronautical engineering degree he wanted so badly.

"Those were heady times for anyone with an aeronautical engineering degree. The day I graduated I had job offers from a surprising number of firms."

"The offer I accepted was from Boeing in Renton, Washington. But you'll never guess why," remarks Simo with a wink.

"When I was growing up, my father had a regular customer in his tavern named Butch McClorey. McClorey was a bowhunter, which was a pretty surprising thing for the time. He used to go up to Wisconsin bowhunting and every now and then he'd return with a deer, and I was so impressed with that. He would bring his bow into the tavern and let me look at it. I'd hold that bow, try to draw it, and just knew I had to have one."

"On my 18th birthday my father asked me what I wanted for a birthday present, and I told him I wanted a bow. We went to the local archery shop, Don Schram's Custom Archery in Forest Park, and I was just amazed at all the bows that were available. They were beautiful, graceful things—recurves and longbows. We picked one out and dad bought it for me."

Andy shot that bow all the way through college. "I'd never had any instruction on how to shoot properly, so I had to try to figure everything out myself But I knew I loved it!"

"Then, after graduation, when it came time to pick a company to work for, I selected Boeing because I thought Washington state would be a great place to learn to bowhunt. I may have been the only aeronautical engineer in history to select Boeing for that reason."

Andy moved to Washington. The job at Boeing was going well and in no time he'd located a local archery shop. That shop was Northwest Archery in Seattle and the proprietor was none other than noted bowhunter Glen St. Charles, one of the original founders of the Pope and Young Club, and a good friend of Fred Bear's.

"I found myself in the midst of this seasoned group of bow hunters. We went elk and deer hunting and I learned how to make my own arrows. It was tremendous fun. That was in 1962, but after less than a year at the commercial aircraft plant in Renton, I was asked by the company to transfer to Huntsville, Alabama."

"Boeing had just landed a contract to work on the booster stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. It sounded like fascinating stuff, so I accepted the transfer and soon found myself working as a sort of engineering understudy for NASA, learning the NASA way of doing things."

"On my second day of work I was being shown around by my supervisor and was introduced to a pretty young secretary. The young girl's name was Cherie. That was in May. In November, Cherie and I were married. As an extra engagement present, I bought Cherie a bow!"

From 1965 until 1971 Andy Simo worked in Georgia for Lockheed. He also spent an inordinate amount of time at the Lockheed Archery Club.

"It was a wonderful archery club, and that's where I really, really got into bows and arrows. There were 26 different field archery ranges around Atlanta at the time, and Cherie and I shot almost every weekend. We even rented a house that had a yard big enough so that we could shoot up to 60 yards. I also bowhunted every weekend during the hunting season."

By 1971, though, Lockheed was laying off huge numbers of engineers and Andy guessed his department was next.

"Ever since college I'd thought about owning my own business. At one time I thought I might like to start a small manufacturing business making components and accessories for model airplanes. But while at Lockheed I'd gotten so immersed in archery that I began thinking seriously about starting a company to design, manufacture, and sell new archery products. It seemed that I was always tinkering with my archery equipment, and I had developed quite a few ideas on how to make things better. Given my engineering background, improved arrow rests seemed like the place to start. At that point, though, everything was still in the thinking stage."

When the layoff finally came, Andy found himself at a turning point.

"I could listen to my head and pursue yet another job in the aircraft industry. Or, I could listen to my heart and try to make a go of designing and manufacturing archery equipment. My heart, and archery, won out."

"I was obsessed with getting peak performance from my bows. I played with brace heights, I modified limbs, I experimented a good deal with lighter bowstrings. But I also worked continuously on better arrow rests. I wanted a new rest that would be more forgiving, more precise. Gradually, I developed what would become my first 'new archery product'—the Flipper Rest. It was pretty advanced for the time."

"Local Atlanta-area archers loved them. I started making them in my basement, bending and soldering the arms myself. Each Flipper Rest sold for $3.50, making them one of the most expensive arrow rests on the market at the time. Then we put a small Ad in a national archery magazine, and more orders trickled in. Gradually demand grew. A few dealers even started ordering them in larger lots, and I hired a few high school kids to help me solder Flipper Rests in the evenings."

That was in 1971. Now leap ahead 30 years and look at New Archery Products today. Today NAP is one of the largest, most respected, and most successful accessory manufacturers in the archery industry. Today there are 60 employees—and a custom designed 29,000 square foot building

The trouble with today's view, though, is that you don't see what it took to get there.

You don't see the extensive background in engineering and design. You don't see the work ethic derived from hard-working, honest parents. You don't see the thirty plus years of slowly building an archery company.

Today, it’s as important as ever to recognize the core passion within Andy Simo that started it all—and continues to drive NAP towards tomorrow.