Much like the company that produced it, a hat from Bollman Hat Company is not the product of a single set of hands.
As it’s made, a Bollman hat will move through about 60 touchpoints.
Each step imbues the piece with a physical reflection of one maker’s artistry before it passes to the next.
Steve Jacobs was one of those makers. He spent 41 years blending and setting fabrics and more, before retiring as an employee-owner of America’s oldest hat company.
More than brick, mortar and machines, it is people like Jacobs and the 87 current employees that comprise the Bollman factory in Adamstown.
And more than felt and fabric, it is people like Jacobs who comprise what Bollman hats have come to be: A slice of local history, a commitment to community, and the preservation, and renewal, of a legacy 157 years in the making.
Don Rongione, Bollman president and chief executive officer, dons the “Steve J.” and other hats in the company’s recently expanded Maker’s Collection as a reminder of the people whose talent and dedication have sustained the company since 1868.
Launched in 2018 for the company’s 150th anniversary, and expanded with another 28 hats in November, the collection is meant to honor longtime Bollman employees.
“(Each hat) is inspired by somebody who has devoted their career here,” Rongione said. “We tell the story of that person with a certificate that comes in a Bollman branded box, a photo of people in the factory and certificates signed by employee-owners.”
The Makers’ Collection is also a connecting point between past and present, representing the Adamstown factory’s storied history, and an initiative by the company to forge a profitable future for the facility.
Changing industry
Rongione noted the factory has operated at an over $1 million deficit for the past three years.
“It was profitable prior to that,” Rongione noted.
He noted Bollman was founded at a time when it was nearly unheard of to leave the house without a hat, but changing fashions and a waning appetite for certain luxuries like headwear have fueled a decline in demand.
When it first began and for roughly 120 years afterward, Bollman operated as a private label hat company.
“That meant (Bollman) would work with (customers) to design and produce products under (their) name that they could take to the marketplace, whether wholesale or retail,” Rongione said. “But we wouldn’t have rights to the intellectual property.”
Eventually, Bollman was forced to compete with low-cost imports from countries like China.
“We knew we needed to better control our destiny and acquire our own brands that we could take to the marketplace,” Rongione said.
Starting in the 1980s and over the next three decades, the company acquired brands like Bailey, Helen Kaminsky, Country Gentlemen, Betmar and Kangol.
Some acquisitions were fueled by the volatility of the headwear industry and have allowed the company to expand its offerings from headwear to other lifestyle products, including bags, purses, footwear and sunglasses.
“Helen Kaminsky and Kangol have had success extending into other categories,” Rongione noted.
That change has led to a decline in production at the factory, which now produces only 23% of the products sold by Bollman, down from 100% in the 1970s, when the factory produced 20 times what it produces today.
“We have not had enough volume from brands and private label to feed the factory at a level where it can be profitable,” Rongione said. “We’ve got to correct that, or the factory will jeopardize the entire business.”
He noted the business itself remains profitable, employing 240 globally, but employment at the factory has dwindled in recent years.
“There was a time we produced 5 million hats a year at the factory,” Rongione said. “And we had over 1,000 people working during those very high production years. Today we’re struggling to get to 250,000 (hats).”
He said the factory has seen two rounds of layoffs, where some employees from the factory were transferred to the Bollman distribution center.
“That’s very painful for us as an employee-owned company with very hardworking people, that we don’t have enough demand to support their positions,” Rongione said.
He noted the factory’s profits spiked immediately post-COVID-19.
“We saw a surge in demand,” Rongione said. “People were going out, reuniting with family, going to weddings. We saw a surge in demand and the factory was very profitable in 2021 and 2022.”
Demand has subsided substantially since then, Rongione said.
“The reality is that today with people struggling (to pay for basic needs), the hat has become more of a want than a need,” Rongione said. “There’s been some challenges for the whole headwear industry. Especially those trying to make it in the states.”
That decrease in demand contributed to the impending demise of a Bollman competitor, F&M Hat Company in Denver, Lancaster County.
F&M has been in business for 113 years, but is in the process of closing.
Tariffs, increased costs
Another challenge is the boomerang effect in international markets caused by the U.S. tariffs on imported goods, Rongione said.
“We saw a decline in U.S. made products being sold to markets like Canada and Europe,” Rongione said. “Some of which was because of the retaliatory tariffs and some which was backlash and negative thinking toward American manufacturers.”
Increases in the cost of raw materials, many of which are no longer obtainable in the U.S., are also complicating the factory’s profitability, Rongione noted.
“We are seeing that our costs are rising dramatically at a time when consumer demand is declining,” Rongione said.
He hopes the Maker’s Collection revamp and other measures, like new U.S. made collections from Kangol and Helen Kaminski and a potential contract for berets with the Army will help revamp the factory’s profitability.
“We’re always updating and collaborating with other brands and offering new products at least twice a year,” Rongione said. “We’ve seen some increase in demand from the Western side of our business, you know, cowboy hats, but not enough to offset the decline in demand we’ve seen for U.S. made products.”
He said the company aims to keep the Maker’s Collection going indefinitely and update it periodically with new hats representing the company’s employees.
For more information on the Maker’s Collection or other Bollman offerings, visit Bollman’s website at hats.com.
