‘Golden’ years return for famed gun maker
Date: Jan 26, 2007 11:14 AM
PUBLICATION: The Province
DATE: 2007.01.26
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Money
PAGE: A32
DATELINE: SPRINGFIELD, Mass.
SOURCE: Associated Press
WORD COUNT: 303

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‘Golden’ years return for famed gun maker

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SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Smith & Wesson may be best recognized as the brand
of choice for Dirty Harry, the movie cop who warned punks his .44 Magnum
was “the most powerful handgun in the world.”

But that was in 1971, and much has changed in the past 36 years. Police
officers want lighter pistols than the bulky steel revolver “Dirty”
Harry Callahan barely concealed under a sport coat. Soldiers need
foolproof weapons that won’t get jammed by the desert sands.

There are guns now more powerful than the .44, and Smith & Wesson has
realized it can’t get by on its name — or Dirty Harry’s — alone.

That’s why Mike Golden, Smith & Wesson’s CEO for the past two years,
has
targeted new technologies and sales to the military and police
departments to ensure the company’s future.

A past corporate boss at Black & Decker, Kohler and The Stanley Works,
Golden knew more about power tools and toilets than the .40-calibre
pistols he jokes about hardly being able to hit a target with.

“When I joined the company, I had never shot a firearm before in my
life,” the 52-year-old said. “I tell people the board wasn’t looking
to
find a marksman.”

When he took over the 155-year-old firm, its earnings were flat. The
U.S. was at war, but military handgun contracts were going to
Italy-based Beretta. Handgun sales to police departments were mostly
going to Glock, an Austrian firm.

“The company had been under-managed and under-marketed for the last 10
to 15 years, at least,” said Golden, who hired a Washington, D.C.,
lobbying firm to go after government contracts. In the past two years,
the company has made four deals worth a total of $20 million US to make
pistols for security forces in Afghanistan.

Golden is also reclaiming ground that Smith & Wesson lost to Glock, by
introducing its M&P (Military and Police) line of polymer pistols, which
are favoured by police departments because they are lighter for their
officers to wear

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !