A good fit: Rocky boots and CCAD

Nick Jonas loves them. Outdoorsmen can’t get enough of them. And more than a few CCAD Industrial Design grads work for them.

The them? Rocky Brands, an 84-year-old shoe and apparel company known for its outdoor, work, western and military footwear — and more recently, a line of casual shoes favored by fashion-conscious celebrities. The company employs about 3,000 people worldwide (350 in southeastern Ohio) and includes the eponymous Rocky, Georgia Boot, Durango, Lehigh — and, since 2013, Creative Recreation, which recently hired Jonas as the brand’s face and capsule collection designer. And while CCAD and Rocky Brands’ Nelsonville headquarters are separated by 60 miles, the connections between the college and the company run strong.

Micah Covert became Rocky Brands’ manager of recruitment in 2014. Since then, he’s attended every CCAD career fair, with a particular interest in Industrial Design students. “When you think of industrial design, you’re likely thinking of machines and parts and mechanical things, but really, industrial design students have a wide range — and especially with our products, where functionality is really important, that wide range of an industrial design student is a helpful aspect,” Covert says.

CCAD alumni have worked at Rocky for years, but Covert says he’s recently “upped the ante” in the relationship. Openings for designers or product developers are rare, but when they happen, “we go to CCAD and interview students there. Or if we need a design intern or someone to intern in product development, we reach out to CCAD,” he says. This year, Rocky was a sponsor of the 2016 CCAD Senior Fashion Show — a move intended to support scholarships for CCAD students and position the company among central Ohio fashion and footwear companies such as L Brands and DSW and RG Barry.

“We make footwear for everyone,” Covert says. “Our focus is boots right now, but since our acquisition of the Creative Recreation brand, we’re focusing our efforts into really growing into the casual market. Not only with Creative Rec, which is a pretty popular coastal fashion brand (a lot of celebrities in the LA area wear them), but also with our Rocky 4EurSole line, which is a brand marketed towards women.”

Among those leading the charge at Creative Recreation is Jordan Anderson (CCAD 2007), the brand’s director of product development. Anderson, a Pickerington native, attended Saturday Morning Art Classes from middle school through his senior year of high school and majored in Industrial Design. The footwear industry is “very, very, very difficult to get into,” Anderson says, but he proved himself to be indispensable at Rocky. “CCAD had trained me to be fast. Like, sketches — fast. Final renderings — fast. So that’s where I carved out a niche. CCAD really prepared me to get stuff done quick and just have that attitude of ’I can handle it.’ ” In January 2014, after designing for Rocky Brands’ various lines of footwear, Anderson was promoted to his current position in Los Angeles-based Creative Recreation, where he oversees development and works with a team to design footwear — plus heads up materials and factory sourcing, pricing and commercialization. Rocky Boots’ leaders “let you grow as much as you want to grow. ... It’s a good environment to become successful,” he says.

Jennifer Helber (CCAD 2012), senior graphic designer for Durango, has worked for Rocky Brands for the last three and a half years. Although she grew up nearby, in Logan, she says she “didn’t really understand” the scope of the company's presence in the region. “I didn't realize that the people that designed everything and worked on everything were actually here — I just thought it was the store — so when I was approached by them to have an interview, I was like, ’They’re actually in Nelsonville?’ It was eye-opening to realize that it all happened in one location.”

Helber majored in Industrial Design at CCAD, with a minor in Graphic Design. Her work includes everything from designing product logos and hang tags to tradeshow booths — and, in what she calls her “weirdest” assignment yet — a porta-potty wrap at the Country Music Association festival in Nashville. She says CCAD taught her how to work under pressure. “There was so much expected of you that you knew you couldn’t just throw anything out there. You wanted something to look the best that it could, and it had to be on point; you had to have the research to back it up,” says Helber.

Covert says he expects Rocky Brands will continue to look to hire from CCAD. “To me, industrial design and product design — especially for footwear — is such a specific industry, and to have a college so close to us ... where students are talented and taught in those fields, I think it’s important to keep that relationship strong.”