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Paul Sunderland, 55, has never strayed too far from the family business - Sunderland of Scotland. A native of Glasgow, Scotland, Sunderland went straight from college to learning the company from the ground level. He ultimately rose to sales director for Sunderland of Scotland, UK. After an eight-year stint away from the company, Sunderland returned in 1989, when he and partner Sid Freund spent five years establishing Sunderland of Scotland, U.S. Today, the 14-handicap Sunderland serves as president of the North American arm of the family business. From his office in Chatsworth, Calif., Sunderland recently spoke with The Wire publisher Alex Miceli.

Q.: At the beginning of this year you announced a strategic alliance between Sunderland and Lyle & Scott. How is that going, it's almost a year old now.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: We were actually acquired by a company called Harris Watson in England. They also own Lyle & Scott. So there is a strategic alliance between the two companies in that we are sister companies now.

And what we are doing, quite simply, is at the PGA show we will be launching an offering of Lyle & Scott for the United States market for the first time in a long time. And it really will be beautiful.

Q.: When you say you're launching, obviously there has been some smatterings of Lyle & Scott in the states before. PAUL SUNDERLAND: Oh, yes. Well you know they're a 145-year-old company. And they have some presence at retail with business in some of the best department stores with retail product, as a retail-oriented product, as opposed to golf. But in golf they have really not been seen in the United States for the best part of four years. And the good news of that is that when we come to the market at this point with fresh product, it's Lyle & Scott at its very best. It's high, premium product that would go along, obviously, with the high, premium position of Sunderland. Now we're keeping the brands separate, but Lyle & Scott will in fact be distributed by us here in California.

Q.: Will there be any kind of positioning in a pro shop, any kind of mixing and matching between Lyle & Scott and Sunderland products?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Not really. We're trying to keep them separate, although obviously it will be delivered in the same box. If they order Sunderland and Lyle & Scott they will be sent at the same time in the same box.

Q.: Will there be marketing or merchandising opportunities?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Probably there will be. But the vast majority of the offering of Lyle & Scott is exactly what you would expect from them, and that is quite simply the very best golf sweaters in the world. And that means, of course, Cashmere, lambs wool and merino.

Q.: The Sunderland manufacturing operation in the U.S. is located in California. Does that mean that Lyle & Scott will be there? Will there be any manufacturing in the states or will that all be done in Scotland?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: That will continue to be made in Scotland.

Q.: So it will be all imported into your facilities in California and distributed from there?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Correct, the sweaters, obviously, are of pure Scottish Cashmere, pure Scottish lambs wool, and in this case actually the merino comes from Portugal. But it's all actually aimed at the U.S. market; it will be U.S. fit. It will just be simple, classic elegance. It's not going to be weird and wonderful colors. It's not going to be, you know, oranges and that. It's not going to be J. Lindeberg, if you know what I mean.

Q.: Now one of the things that Lyle & Scott does outside of the sweaters that you've talked about is they do make the polo shirts. Will those be included as well?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: The offering that is in Europe is not going to be available in the United States. We are going to offer a small group of shirts that will be what they call their Tour Collection. Which means it's Tour logo-ed. It's what Lyle & Scott Tour players actually wear and it will have a couple of sweaters to match. There are actually five distinct groups that we will be distributing.

One will be Cashmere, and there will be two weights, a single ply and a two ply. There will be pure Scottish lambs wool in two or three styles and a large number of colors, including of course entarsia; you know - the old argyle - which I think is expected. Merino will be the third of the groups. It will be simple, straightforward, available in a terrific number of colors and competitively priced. The fourth group is the Tour group which will include three different shirts, a crew neck sweater which goes with the shirts, and a brushed cotton fleece. Lastly, we will offer a basic piqued polo, extremely well priced, mainly aimed at tournament and corporate business.

Q.: You are going to be basically offering two different lines of product now, the Sunderland line and the Lyle & Scott line. Going forward in 2004 and 2005, how do you see that affecting sales and your entry into certain markets maybe that you haven't had access to in the past?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: We see this as really not so much an entrance for Sunderland, but Sunderland building, to some extent, an entrance for Lyle & Scott. The issue is not to merge the two companies and bolster one with the other, the idea is that both companies should be able to virtually stand alone but compliment one another in the United States. The big thing is, however, is that Sunderland must stand on its own, and it does. Quite simply we believe we make the very best golf rainwear and windwear in the world. That's what our focus is and will continue to be.

Q.: Let's talk about your lines and your product lines going forward in 2004. I know that you signed a long, lengthy agreement (time-wise) with Gore. Obviously you're pretty much married to Gore going forward?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: As our flagship product, absolutely. No question. We are using non-Gore materials for a price-point product. But our flagship product, the product that we sort of stand up and say, this is truly who we are, as a brand, is our GT Tour. And the GT - meaning golf technology - is Goretex.

Q.: In that light, because that is your, as you mentioned, your flagship product, what changes can we see? How is the product going to change in the offering going forward this year?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Well frankly, the line was only introduced in March this year for delivery. People have only seen it for a few months. We are not planning to change the basic rainwear, the GT Tour - it's too darn good - in any major way, until probably fall '04 or spring, '05.

So going forward for '04, the line remains the same as far as the GT Tour is concerned. The important thing to remember is that feel is what Sunderland is all about. We make the softest quietest lightest weight outerwear in the world. That's our claim to fame.

Q.: And I'm assuming that's not going to change.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: No, sir.

Q.: This has been a difficult year. Last year was a difficult year as well, from a sales standpoint. Traveling was down, probably up more this year than it was last year, but still it's not where the levels were maybe three or four years ago.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: By no means.

Q.: How has that affected the way you've gone forward with your products and your lines and what have you done to kind of, I guess the best word is counteract the slow-down in travel? PAUL SUNDERLAND: What we have tried to do more than anything else is make sure the product has wide distribution at the basic pro shop level.

That means the guy at his local pro shop can still get Sunderland.

That's what we have to, I think, concentrate on. And that's what we have been concentrating on for the last couple of years in particular. Just basically make sure the distribution is as wide as it can be and is in just as many pro shops as possible. We understand that the traveling is not going around, so our resort business is not what we would like it to be. And there's really not too much of a way around that. If people aren't traveling, they're not traveling. But I think a lot of people are staying at home and they're playing golf at home more often, and at least there's the opportunity to sell them product at home. So that's what we have to concentrate on.

Q.: Going forward, in '04, what can we expect? Can we expect any new product lines or any new products?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: At the show, the new products that we're concentrating on are one or two new short sleeve pieces. And most people don't know, of course, we're the people who actually invented short sleeve technology in the first place. We were selling short sleeve rain gear back in 1997.

Q.: I didn't know that.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Yeah. Well it's the truth. And in fact, you could probably see photographs of guys like Steve Pate on Tour. Now I can't use his name because we didn't sponsor him, but these guys, a lot of Tour guys were wearing the short sleeve water piece, way back in '96, '97, '98.

Q.: Okay.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: And all of a sudden, the old story, Tiger wears it in the Open and all of a sudden it's the greatest thing since sliced bread. It shows you the power of Tiger Woods.

Q.: That's right.

PAUL SUNDERLAND: But the interesting thing is that Nike's short sleeve piece was an absolute direct knockoff off our short sleeve Tour piece. So the interesting thing is that we invent things. That's our whole history. My late father, God rest his soul, was quoted as being the inventor of the first truly waterproof rain suit for golf. He was the inventor of the wind shirt. Off the record, I wish he had been able to patent it. I would probably be on my yacht in Fiji. The fact of the matter is, it's the single most copied garment in sport.

Not just golf.

Because they're wearing it for everything. For tennis and for ... you see the football coaches wearing them and baseball coaches. I mean it's unbelievable. And my late father was the guy who actually invented that. And now that is over 20 years ago. The first wind shirt came out in 1983.

Q.: You've been in the U.S., had a facility here in the U.S. for how long?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Since 1989. So it's what? 14 years.

Q.: Right. Your ability to react to fashion trend changes, economic changes and everything else, is it hugely beneficial for you to be here in the U.S. to be able to react that way or would you have been able to do it just as easily from Scotland?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: No, the fact that we have a facility here and that I am actually here running it, and that we actually dedicated a member of the family, as a family business, to do this properly ourselves, made an enormous difference. It meant that we could react, obviously, much more quickly to the marketplace. We could see what was going on and we could change accordingly. There was no way for us, for instance, to be able to satisfy the market's demands, particularly with windwear, without being here. We do an enormous amount of tournament business in particular.

Things like member/guests and so on. And part of the reason that we are so successful in that arena is because we do our own manufacturing and embroidering. We can turn things around with enormous speed. That means people can even, almost at the last minute, order product from us and get it on time. Service, of course, is the other side of the equation.

Q.: Would you say, if you had to gauge how good this year was, from a business standpoint for Sunderland, how would you gauge it?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Difficult. This has not been a good year. I think it's been a very challenging year for most companies who are in our position.

The smaller or mid-sized companies especially have tended to be squeezed. The large companies have definitely made gains. You either, I think, have to be very small indeed or very big. The companies in the middle are the ones that are being hurt. And that's one of the reasons, of course, that we have created the alliance and are doing this is to be bigger. And I think that's what we have to do in order to survive and go forward. We need to be bigger.

Q.: Do you think you've done enough, from your standpoint, to be able to be big enough or do you think you even need to be bigger?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: I think at this point we are ... it's the old story of you take your first steps, but you walk before you run. This stage, I think we're the right size for what we're doing. We plan, of course, on growing it. And growing it ... we have basically a three- to five-year plan. And in three to five years, we expect to be very considerably larger than we are now.

Q.: Would a large percentage of that growth that you're looking at be in the North American or U.S. market?

PAUL SUNDERLAND: Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly. We see ... growth in Britain and Europe is much slower because we already dominate the market. In Britain in particular we have by far the largest market share of any company in outerwear. I mean it's enormous. We have three times the market share of our next biggest competitor in Britain. So it's a little bit different. So we're looking really from growth in both the United States ... well really North America as a whole and also to some extent the Far East.