Callaway 1999 Annual Report Download - page 7

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5C ALLAWAY GOLF COMPANY
I joined with the Board in announcing with great pride that Chuck had been appointed President of
Callaway Golf Company, and that he would become CEO upon my retirement, which is expected at
the end of 2000. I am pleased with the process the Board followed in identifying and selecting
Chuck, who is a fine and talented man with exceptional dedication and leadership qualities.
■The rest of your management team – which is a mixture of old and new – also looks very strong.
Chuck Yash, in addition to his new duties, remains in charge of our golf ball operations. Richard
Helmstetter remains as the head of golf club R&D, and he and his team continue to design golf club
products that set a standard that others can only dream of matching. Ron Drapeau continues to lead
our golf club manufacturing area, and has been responsible for tremendous improvements in effi-
ciency while increasing output and maintaining quality. Mick McCormick joined us from Nike in
January 2000 as Executive Vice President, Global Sales. He now runs a consolidated operation that
permits the coordination of all our sales teams, in the U.S. and abroad. Our Chief Legal Officer, Steve
McCracken, provides excellent legal guidance while protecting the Company, its brand names, and its
shareholders from counterfeiting, copying, disparagement, and other unfair attacks. Soon we will be
replacing David Rane as our CFO in 2000, completing, for now, the top management group.
■We also have an exceptional collection of talented people among the rest of the officers. While
every one of them is contributing to the Company’s success, I would like to mention a few who just
joined us or were recently promoted. In March of 2000 we hired Donna Kaptain as Senior Vice
President, Human Resources, replacing Beth O’Mea who had been in charge of the Company’s H.R.
function for 10 years. Peter Gotfredson was promoted to the position of Vice President, Sales and
Marketing at Callaway Golf Ball in November of 1999, and Jim Chenevey was promoted to Senior Vice
President, International Sales, for the parent company. Darian Pasterski left Mattel in 1999 to join us
as Vice President, Customer Strategies, to work on the strategic development of our e-business ini-
tiatives. Dana Shertz and Gary Kamees were promoted to vice president positions in 1999, in sales
and manufacturing, respectively.
■Based on our ongoing R&D efforts, we were able to launch three new products to the golf club
markets of the world in 1999. The Great Big Bertha®Hawk Eye®Titanium Metal Woods with the
Tungsten Gravity Screw and the Hawk Eye®Tungsten Injected™Titanium Irons with the Tungsten
Weight Matrix both sold very well in 1999, and are continuing to sell well in 2000. We also brought to
market in 1999 the new Odyssey®TriForce™Putter, which combined our proprietary soft Stronomic®
Insert with both stainless steel and super-heavy tungsten. In our opinion, these products helped give
us in 1999 the strongest product line-up of any golf club company – and there’s more to come, as we
have already shown in 2000.