ECCO USA has appointed Linda Clohosey as retail director and Tim Sweeney as dealership manager. Clohosey will oversee 32 dealership stores and 18 outlets, while Sweeney will support daily store operations and lead efforts to expand the dealership program. In 2007 ECCO will open 8 new dealerships, with 8 -10 new store openings projected for each year following.

“With the growth of our dealership stores we’ve seen a need to build our internal organization,” said Tom Nelson, president of ECCO, USA. “Over the past year we’ve developed an infrastructure that can support the increasing dealership demands as well as the corporately owned concept and outlet stores. We are confident that we’ve accomplished our goal of providing support to our retail partners while allowing them to operate independently in their area of expertise.”

Both Linda Clohosey and Tim Sweeney bring extensive retail backgrounds with them to ECCO. Clohosey served as both vice president of retail operations at Saucony and director of retail stores at Converse. While at New Balance, Sweeney was responsible for opening 134 New Balance concept stores in 14 years.

“Coming off a solid year in 2006, we’re looking forward to fueling further growth in 2007.” said Linda Clohosey, retail director. “By hiring the right talent and introducing programs such as mystery shoppers and our new arena store design concept, we will continue to develop the dealership program and improve the ECCO shopping experience.”