Russ Okawa - GIANT

How long has GIANT been coming to Interbike?

Oh.....good heavens...... it's had to have been at least nine or ten years.....into the USA market...... it's gone through a few transitions but...... for quite a while.

What is your focus for the show this year?

I think our primary focus from a business standpoint for this show is to refine our dealer base...... to establish a more solid dealer base.

This is the largest gathering of cycling industry representatives from all over the world. What is your take on the general attitude for 2002?

It seems to be really good and I have to qualify that by the fact that.......because I'm in marketing all of the meetings that I have had have been people wanting advertising dollars and sponsorships (laughs) so..... I have not had much interface with dealers....... but.......the buzz I'm getting from the sales reps....... the buzz that I have gotten from other people at the show is that everybody seems to be incredibly upbeat about the industry. That's been really exciting.

Will the Sept. 11th attacks on America and its effect on the economy change any of your business plans for 2002?

That's a difficult question to answer....... because that's an issue that affects the United States in general. We are also dealing with a major shakeup in the industry that is in some ways a more immediate thing that we've been dealing with here........ so the focus in what we were doing here effectively changed in the last ten days in terms of what the focus was at this show. Obviously before we were here to sell as much product as we could and to be as solid as we could with our retailers. We knew at that point that there was going to be a big fallout. We figured there was going to be some fallout regardless of what the Schwinn/GT positioning was......... there was going to be some "outcome" that we would have to deal with but........ as a result of what happened...... it's tweaked our objectives for this year's show........ now we really want to lock in on establishing a solid dealer base.

Are you happy with this year's show?

Oh yeah.......absolutely....... we're thrilled.......again......I haven't been out to see much but one comment that was made to me by somebody when we were talking about the show..... the comment that was floating was....... "There's a lot of people at the show and they're at two places...... they are at GIANT and they are at TREK." We've been really, really, really busy the whole time....... it's just been phenomenal.