George Grabner “retired” unexpectedly as president of American Recreation Products (ARP) last week after 16 years serving in the post. He was replaced the same day by Jim Baumann, who spent most of the last 15 years running the nations largest operator of college bookstores.
The change, which has not yet been formally announced by ARP, comes seven months after Sun Capital Securities Group LLC acquired ARPs parent company, Kellwood Corp., for $767 million. Kellwoods board relented to the unsolicited bid only after Sun Capital persuaded a majority of Kellwoods shareholders that Kellwoods executives had badly mismanaged the company.
In July, Sun Capital stripped ARP out of Kellwood and in September Robert Skinner resigned as CEO of Kellwood.
Grabner spent 22 years at with the company, which owns Kelty, Slumberjack, Wenzel and Sierra Designs. He had served as a president of Kelty before being appointed president of ARP in 1992.
The change was announced at ARPs companies on Wednesday, when Baumann began meeting with management teams for the four brands.
Baumann has been president of Follett College Stores since 1996. The company is the largest unit of the $1.7 billion Follett Corporation of River Grove, IL, which operates hundreds of college books stores and wholesales millions of books a year to independently-owned college book stores.
Baumann started his career at Follett College Stores as director of new product development. He was promoted to VP of advertising and promotions and then VP of the merchandize group before being appointed COO in 1995. His rise to the presidency came as Follett was trying to protect its lucrative college book store operations from online start-ups that allowed students to order text books directly. Today Follett has extensive online, wholesale and retail business.
