After 59 years of making headwear, San Antonio-based Texace, now a golf hat manufacturing firm, has stopped production, leaving about 150 employees without a job.
The company quietly shut its doors Monday, telling employees not to report back to work the next day.
CEO Charles “Hop” Fuhrmann said the company stopped production pending the sale of the business or its parts.
“It appears this is a judicious thing for the company to do at this point in time,” he said.
Fuhrmann said there were several reasons for the decline in business. They included a downturn in the seasonal business from resorts after 9-11, the lackluster economy and imports cutting into the market share.
Even mad cow disease affected the business, Fuhrmann said, since orders from Britain were placed on hold for several months. Europe, he said, made up about 15 percent of Texace’s business.
Two years ago the Express-News reported that Texace had about 300 employees, but Fuhrmann said that when he and partner Jeff Seidel bought the plant in 2001, the company hovered between 130 and 170 employees.
A Texace employee who asked not to be named said the company had about 150 workers. She said officials called a meeting Monday afternoon and told workers that the company was shutting down and they shouldnt report to work the next day.
“Everyone was shocked,” the employee said. “No one really thought to ask about whether they were going to give us (severance pay). We dont even know whether they are working on our paychecks or if they are going to give us our vacation pay.”
Texace production employees pay averaged $6.15 to $9 an hour depending on how many units they were able to produce, according to the source. Production slowed in the two weeks before the closure, she said.
Fuhrmann said there is a skeleton staff of about 10 employees to fill remaining orders. He said that although the company was on its way to seeing revenue, it ran out of capital to pay for its inventory and employees.
“We didnt want to ask them to come to work if we werent in the position to pay them,” Fuhrmann said.
Before buying Texace, Fuhrmann and Seidel oversaw the dissolution of Lot$Off Corp., a San Antonio-based discount retailer that sold its stores in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.
Former owner Bob Coleman, who ran the company for 17 years, said several years ago that Texace had 84 percent of the hat business for the Professional Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association.
But in recent years, local golf pros said Texace was starting to lose its market share to competitors who created more pizzazz with their products.
Marc DeWall, the Dominion Country Club’s head pro, said the club replaced Texace with other brands, although, as a favor for one of the club’s members, it did place some orders with Texace to support the local company.
