NEW HAVEN — Uretek, from its textile factory here, ships materials to makers of airships, diving suits, flame retardant clothing, inflatable splints, thermal packs and those evacuation slides on airplanes.
Next on the list, the company hopes, is athletic shoes for soldiers.
But Uretek and New Balance, which would fabricate the shoes, are finding that getting into that slice of the military market is difficult, even though a decades-old law seems to point to them as the perfect supplier.
The main obstacle: the Pentagon.
Athletic shoes are one of the few items that soldiers don't need to be 100 percent made domestically. Instead, new recruits get vouchers to buy whichever athletic shoes they would like.
Everything else a soldier wears — dress shoes, boots, socks, uniforms — is required to be made from domestic materials and suppliers, thanks to the 1941 federal law known as the Berry Amendment. But athletic shoes, makers of which left our shores years ago, get the voucher loophole.
"If you take all the items on the foot, every piece of that is procured under the Berry Amendment except athletic shoes, and there's no good rationale," said Matt LeBretton, head of public affairs for New Balance. "All along we've said there needs to be a competitive bid environment."
He said the Army in 2002 and the Air Force in 2008 adopted the vouchers system to allow recruits some choice on running shoes, as the number of shoemakers with significant U.S. operations dwindled.
For example, the Air Force gives a $75 voucher to each of its approximately 30,000 recruits for athletic shoes — spending about $2.25 million on sneakers annually, Air Force spokeswoman Candice Ismirle said. The Army spends about $5.25 million on athletic shoes, giving $70 to its approximately 75,000 recruits, said spokesman Wayne Hall.
Between active duty and reserves, the military brought in about 150,000 new recruits.
New Balance has been talking for years with the Department of Defense and the White House, and estimates that the footwear contract would require at least 225,000 pairs a year, the extra to account for stocking a variety of sizes as well as military retail shops. The company would add about 200 employees.
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a version of the defense budget weeks ago that would require that the military buy domestically sourced shoes. With approval from the Senate and President Obama, New Balance would be one of two shoe companies with the ability to compete for the contract. (The other is Wolverine Worldwide, which makes Chaco, Merrell, Patagonia shoes, as well as Bates, a brand already used by the military.)
And the business would trickle to suppliers like Uretek too.
"A full build-out of a military program like this would add jobs," said Uretek's corporate counsel, Sarah McGuire. The company would make material for two parts of the shoe: the toe box and the foxing, protective coverings for the front and back of the shoe, respectively.
Finding all the right materials exclusively from the United States is difficult, she said. "There's a smaller population [of companies] to be choosing from," McGuire said. "The challenge our customers see is finding suppliers that can provide materials that are made in the United States from the fiber levels up."
"But, on the flip side, whether it's a big contract or a small contract, it keeps manufacturing in the United States," she said.
One of every four pairs of the shoes sold by New Balance are made in the United States, though the standard for "Made in the USA" requires just 70 percent of the shoe to be domestically sourced. The Berry Amendment requires 100 percent.
"If you're going to use wool, the sheep has to eat grass on American soil," LeBretton said.
In talks with the Pentagon, LeBretton said he sensed a lack of desire to change, especially to a system that's harder to administer. He also heard concerns from officials that said recruits should be able to choose a familiar brand and style of shoes they want to train in, an argument he didn't buy.
"If soldiers in Afghanistan are literally running for their lives, they'll be in Berry Amendment combat shoes that have none of those concerns," LeBretton said.
Federal officials told New Balance that it wasn't possible to make domestically sourced athletic shoes, the company said. So they made some. The company bought machinery to make the mid and outer soles, and produced 5,000 Berry Amendment-compliant athletic shoes.
In June, the House passed a version of the National Defense Authorization Act that includes language forcing the military to buy domestic athletic shoes, in the same manner it buys other footwear and apparel for soldiers, so long as there's more than one company
"In the case of athletic footwear needed by members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marine Corps upon their initial entry into the armed forces, the Secretary of Defense shall furnish such footwear directly to the members instead of providing a cash allowance to the members for the purchase of such footwear," reads the bill.
The Senate is expected to vote on the bill when it returns from summer break.
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