PSE Archery: 50 Years of Innovation

www.insidearchery.com

®

MARCH 2020

INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020 VOLUME 23 NUMBER 2

48 People

82 36 Power of Participation
36 ■ Jason Obermiller, RACKOLOGY LLC
■ Bill Thurman, Trophy Arm
■ Marty Cecil, B3 Archery
■ Blake Goodell, Hurricane
Safety Systems
■ Aaron Ambur, Nexus Outdoors
■ Krista Miller, Kinsey’s Inc.

38 PSE:
50 Years of Innovation
By Daniel Allred

Market Trends

38 48 Bow Report
Athens Archery Summit 6
By Patrick Meitin

66 2020’s Top Compound Bows
Check out a comprehensive guide
for 2020’s top bows.
By Patrick Meitin

74 Talk of the 2020
ATA Trade Show

The newest, trend-setting products

your customers will be asking

for by name in 2020.

By Patrick Meitin

74

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6 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020

MARCH 2020 INSIDEARCHERY.COM 7

BY DANIEL ALLRED
There’s no easy way to sum up a com-
pany as legendary as PSE. After all, his team continue to deliver the engineering exper-
tise and industry knowledge that served them well
in the past, and the company has also made modern
updates that will ensure its continued success for the

the history of PSE goes hand in hand next 50 years and beyond.

with the history of the compound bow itself. A Blueprint for the Modern Bow:
From Then to Now
Established in 1970, PSE was one of the five original
companies that developed and manufactured com- Pete Shepley’s relationship with archery and bow
pound bows. Today, half a century later, it is the only building began long before he was making com-
one of those five original companies that’s still de- pound bows with PSE. Here’s how he described the
veloping products and pushing the limits of archery beginning in his own words:
technology.
“Archery started for me in the mid 1940s,” Shepley
Much of PSE’s enduring success is thanks to its said. “I spent summers on a farm in Rockford, Illi-
renowned founder and CEO, Pete Shepley. Under the nois, with my grandpa, and he was a real outdoors-
guidance of this industry pioneer, PSE has evolved man. We fished and hunted and everything else,
into a definitive leader of compound bow technol- but more importantly, we made bows out of Osage
ogy. Shepley has continually elevated his products orange. Those bows would dry out and break every
and improved his manufacturing techniques to stay 30 days or so, so we were always making new ones.
ahead of the curve. He didn’t just adapt to the chang- He also bought me a new wooden arrow every week
ing bow market—he helped define it. when I was working on the farm, and I deeply trea-
sured each one of those arrows.”
Now, with 50 years of growth and innovation be-
hind it, PSE is entering a new era. Pete Shepley and From this early introduction to the sport, Shepley
went on to compete in archery tournaments in his

38 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020

Pete Shepley has made 39
countless contributions to
the archery industry. Some
of the contributions were technical
advancements, and others were for
the betterment of archery in general.
Today, Shepley remains the leader of
his company, and he is as dedicated as
ever to improving archery technology
and supporting the industry at large.

MARCH 2020 INSIDEARCHERY.COM

teens. Shepley’s first tournament was in 1949, and PSE became an internationally acclaimed manufacturer,
he has remained a diehard competitor ever since. In and it has remained a top player in the industry until the
fact, Shepley was recently a competitor in the 2020 modern day.
Vegas Shoot.
Under One Big Roof
An avid tinkerer by nature, Shepley graduated
from high school and then earned a mechanical engineering But Shepley is also the first to admit that he didn’t do it all
degree. From there, Shepley took a job at Magnavox, where alone. As his company grew, so did his staff, and after so
he developed missiles and other weapon systems for the U.S. many years in business, his staff has become incredibly
government for 10 years. His passion for archery never faded gifted. Today, PSE employs around 175 employees at the
during this early stage of his career, though. With cutting- company’s 150,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in
edge tools and materials at his disposal, Shepley used his Tucson, Arizona, and an increasing number of these em-
knowledge of engineering and archery to create a handful of ployees have been with the company for decades.
revolutionary items that we take for granted today.
Shepley has also assembled a dedicated leadership team
“I worked on a lot of military projects at Magnavox, but all with the same values, work ethic and passion for archery
of that time I was also making archery products,” Shepley as him. Two prime examples are David Kronengold, general
said. “There was a machine shop set up for us engineering manager; and Lonnie Workman, vice president of sales and
guys, and when everyone else went to lunch I would build marketing. Much like Pete Shepley, David Kronengold and
things. I made arrow rests and sights, and that’s also where Lonnie Workman fell in love with archery at a young age.
plastic vanes came from. I also made one of the first release Also much like Shepley, their passion eventually led them
aids in those days, and a lot of other little toys.” to a career in the archery industry.

All of these “toys” were developed in the days of recurve David Kronengold was born and raised in New Jersey, where
bows, and as history has clearly shown, everything changed he first tried archery at a summer camp. This taste of the sport
for Shepley with the advent of the compound bow. prompted Kronengold to seek professional coaching and pur-
sue Olympic-style shooting. Intent on working in the archery
Shepley left Magnavox to establish his own business, and industry, Kronengold then earned a mechanical engineering
soon PSE became the fifth company to lease Holless Wilbur degree at MIT and was hired by PSE shortly after graduation.
Allen’s patent for the compound bow. PSE’s first compound
bow design was an almost instant hit. Shepley, along with Lonnie Workman took a different path, but he arrived at a
two of his friends, unveiled the first PSE compound at an very similar location. Born and raised in West Virginia, Work-
archery tournament in Indiana. The three of them placed man considered bowhunting as a rite of passage. He went
first, second and third, and Shepley sold 200 bows in that on to earn an economics degree and work in banking for 10
weekend alone. In the following months, archers all over the years, but bowhunting remained his true passion. One day,
country were trying to get their hands on a PSE compound. he sent an application to PSE out of the blue, and he was hired
24 hours later.
Over the years, Shepley continued to prove again and
again that he was a brilliant engineer of archery products. For Pete Shepley, a passionate workforce has been a key
part of his company’s lasting success.
“They know bows and arrows as
well as I do, and they also just love
archery and want to be involved,”
Shepley said. “They aren’t just looking
for a dollar—they’re in it for the long
haul. They want to make the sport
grow, and they want to make truly

Lonnie Workman (left) and David Kronengold
are key players in PSE’s senior leadership
team. Much like Pete Shepley, they both fell
in love with archery at a young age and went
on to pursue it professionally.

40 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020

great equipment. If they don’t enjoy it, then 41
we will find out. Manufacturing is difficult.
They won’t last long, and they will just move
on and find something else that’s easier.”

As a fellow mechanical engineer and die-
hard archer, David Kronengold has a deep
appreciation for the many technical mile-
stones that Shepley and PSE have achieved
over the years. For him, PSE’s legacy is a
point of pride and proof of the company’s
highly innovative approach.

“The fact that PSE has been making com-
pound bows since the early days is a ma-
jor achievement on its own,” Kronengold
said. “But then PSE stayed on the forefront
of technology in the 80s, 90s and 2000s. We
weren’t the first, but we were one of the first
to have CNC-machined aluminum risers. Af-
ter that, we developed our patented extruded
aluminum riser, which brought our tech-
nology down to a lower price point. In the
mid-1990s, PSE had the first commercially
available mass-manufactured carbon riser.
Although we were not the first, we were on
the front line of bringing single cams to the
market, and we were also one of the first to
use highly pre-loaded limbs, which are now
very common in the market. On top of all
that, we have regularly led the speed game.
We’ve always had—if not the fastest bow—
the most shootable fast bow in the industry.”

As PSE’s bows have improved, so has
the company’s manufacturing facility. PSE

Pete Shepley has remained an avid completive shoot-
er since his teens. This deep passion for the sport has

been a major factor behind PSE’s enduring success.
But in addition to being a devoted target shooter,
Pete Shepley is also a diehard and prolific bowhunter.
His bowhunting adventures have taken him around
the world many times to pursue unique game, and
these experiences have also served as important

inspiration for PSE’s many innovations.

This humble building (bottom image) in Mahomet,
Illinois, was PSE’s original facility. After steady

growth, the company relocated to Tucson, Arizona,
in 1982, where it remains to this day.

MARCH 2020 INSIDEARCHERY.COM

remains dedicated to U.S. manufacturing, and the customer service here in house, too. Pretty much everything
facility has grown over the last five decades to fulfill we do takes place under one roof.”
a wide variety of needs. Today, PSE’s Tucson facility
has everything required to build a modern bow from The fact that the company is making its own carbon ris-
scratch. ers is particularly important to PSE’s leadership team. It
“We’ve always been pushing the limits of our manufac- serves as a testament to the company’s dedicated staff and
turing technologies,” Kronengold explained. “We started us- manufacturing expertise.
ing CNC machines in the early days, and now we have a very
large CNC department. In the mid-2000s, we started cutting “We have an incredibly engaged workforce that is will-
fiberglass and manufacturing pultruded limbs. Just this last ing to go the extra mile,” Kronengold said. “Last year they
year, we brought our carbon riser manufacturing in house. proved that when we asked them to do something that
We also manufacture our Livewire bowstrings here, and seemed impossible: to start manufacturing carbon risers
we do injection molding, anodizing, powder coating, dye- here in the building. It took a while to learn the process, but
sublimation and hydrographic decoration—pretty much we are now the only domestic manufacturer of carbon ris-
everything that’s involved in the process. We bring the raw ers in the industry, and by bringing that process in-house,
materials in, and we do everything here.” we have even more control over it. We’ve been doing it for
Other key aspects of the company are also found here, al- about five months, and now we are just keeping up with the
lowing PSE to operate as a truly streamlined machine. demand. We just hired a second shift and we are still hiring
“Pete has always promoted vertical integration,” Kronen- for a third shift, so we will be making carbon risers 24 hours
gold said. “All of these manufacturing technologies give us a day, 7 days a week.”
the ability to quickly and precisely manufacture the designs
that are coming from our advanced engineering depart- For 2020, PSE is using its state-of-the-art facility to bring
ment. All of our marketing is also done here in house, and some powerful new innovations to the market. In addition to
we have sales reps who work for the company. They are not a cutting-edge lineup of compound bows, PSE also unveiled
independent reps; they are PSE employees. We handle our its new Warhammer crossbow.

“Pete actually invented the compound crossbow in 1978,
and we’ve made crossbows ever since,” Workman said.
“Some years we have been more innovative than others,

but we are really getting back into it with
the new Warhammer. It is a 100 percent
domestic-manufactured high-end crossbow.
It’s compact—with a 6.125-inch axle-to-axle
measurement at full draw. It’s lightweight,
balanced and extremely maneuverable. It’s
also very accurate and easy to shoot. A lot of

Continued on Page 44

PSE’s manufacturing facility is also equipped with
a spacious event center (left) and outdoor range
(below). The company uses these areas to host
events and offer advanced coaching.

42 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020



Continued from Page 42 more archers to show up and play the game, and we want to
make sure that PSE is an obvious choice when they buy their
testing has been done on this crossbow. It first bow or next bow.”
is truly top-of-the-line, and it’s made from
scratch right here in Tucson.” PSE’s robust collection of partnerships also gives the com-
pany ample access to industry experts.
An Industry Advocate
“All of our partners bring value to the team, and everyone
Excellent engineering has clearly been central to brings different value,” Kronengold said. “Some of our pro-
PSE’s lasting success, but behind the scenes, Pete staff members are incredibly technical, and they engage in
Shepley has also always been a devoted advocate for a lot of conversations with our product development team.
the industry. Others are not as technical, but they are tremendous influ-
encers, and they understand that their job is to spread the
This is only fitting for one of the archery’s great- word by going to events and winning, or showing up to a
est pioneers. Shepley has dedicated his life to ar- hunt and killing the biggest animal. We are constantly hav-
chery, and he wants archery to grow and succeed ing conversations with the best hunters and the best shoot-
in all of its forms. ers, and we make them actual members of our team. We
don’t just sponsor them and give away products. We speak
To that end, PSE acknowledges that both bow- with them on a daily basis. They are our eyes, ears and
hunting and target shooting play their own vital mouth. They give us critical feedback, and they also get the
roles. For Pete Shepley, PSE’s recent investment in message out and drive consumer demand.”
target archery has been a full-circle experience.
With 50 years in the business, PSE also understands that
“In the beginning, we focused pretty much exclu- a thriving industry requires thriving dealers. Accordingly,
sively on target archery, because that’s just what I PSE considers its dealers as essential partners.
was really interested in,” Shepley explained. “I used
to have a lot of conversations with Fred Bear. He “I still talk with dealers on a daily basis,” Workman said.
would call me in his later days, and we would talk “That’s extremely important to me. I want to know what
about what I was up to. He always said, ‘Pete, target they are seeing in the industry, and I want to know what
archery is a lot of fun, but you’re not going to get
anyone recognizing you until you start shooting some big
animals.’ That kind of changed my direction, and we started
focusing a lot more on hunting.

“Recently, though, target archery has come back to
the forefront for PSE,” Shepley continued. “I have always
thought that target archery was great for pro-shops and the
industry. I think if you start ten people in target archery,
nine of them will go bowhunting. But if you start ten people
in bowhunting, very few of them will get into target shoot-
ing. We like customers who do both, because then they are
in shops all year—instead of just during hunting season.
Today we are focused on tournament shooting every bit as
much as hunting.”

In addition to developing revolutionary target bows, PSE
has also partnered with top professional shooters and sup-
ported important organizations like S3DA and World Archery.

“We realized that PSE could have a lot more presence in
target archery, so we have made some transitions in the last
18 months or so,” Kronengold said. “We are pushing prod-
ucts in that direction. We are pushing marketing efforts in
that direction. We are also doing promotional events and
even partnerships in that direction. We recently partnered
with S3DA, and we just signed a partnership with World Ar-
chery while we were at the Vegas Shoot. It’s very important
for us to seek out and support these organizations. We want

44 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020

MARCH 2020 INSIDEARCHERY.COM A proud U.S. manufacturer, PSE creates its bows from scratch at the company’s 150,000-square-foot
manufacturing facility in Tucson, Arizona. Pete Shepley has long valued U.S. manufacturing and verti-
cal integration. Today, the company’s facility has a robust collection of manufacturing technologies
and capabilities, including a large CNC department, carbon riser manufacturing, string building, injec-
tion molding, anodizing, powder coating, dye-sublimation, hydrographic decoration and much more.
PSE recently started manufacturing carbon risers in its facility, making it the only domestic manu-
facturer of carbon risers in the industry. The company currently employs about 175 employees, and
many of these workers have been with the company for decades. These veteran PSE employees bring
a high level of dedication, and their attention to detail is one of the keys to PSE’s continued success.

45

they are looking for. I want to know what As a vertically integrated manufacturer, PSE creates, assembles,
PSE is doing right, and I want to know packages and ships its products after starting out with raw materials.
what we can do better. That’s why I talk to
dealers personally on a daily basis. They’re Conclusion
our main customers, and they are para-
mount to our success. We are always listening, You can’t argue with 50 years of success. Pete Shepley and his
and they have a ton of influence on our buying dedicated team clearly know something that others do not.
programs, products and everything else we do.”
Altogether, PSE has a long list of benefits for its Perhaps PSE’s lasting success is the product of excellent
pro-shop partners. engineering, or perhaps it is the company’s ability to con-
“We make a bow at every price point, from entry-level bows stantly stay ahead of the curve. Maybe it’s the company’s
all the way up to high-end target bows and carbon bows,” veteran employees and commitment to American manufac-
Workman said. “At every price point, we offer very shootable, turing, or maybe it’s because industry legend Pete Shepley
high-quality bows, and they provide the best value for the remains at the helm.
money. Our lower-price bows have less bells and whistles,
but they are extremely good products. We are also focused on The obvious answer is that PSE’s success is a combina-
providing our dealers with the best margins possible in the tion of all these factors, but there is something else at play.
industry. We need to help them make money, so we are very Beneath all the company’s engineering breakthroughs and
aggressive with our pricing and buying programs. We need industry-focused decisions, there is a deep sense of love for
shops out there with ranges, classes, JOAD, S3DA, etc. Those archery.
shops are truly the lifeblood and future of the industry, and
we’re doing everything we can to support them.” “Archery has been my whole life,” Shepley said. “It’s been
Ultimately, PSE’s partnership efforts play into the com- David’s whole life and Lonnie’s whole life, too. Everyone here
pany’s big-picture strategy of protecting and growing the in- loves the sport and loves the people in it. It’s fun to make the
dustry itself. equipment and introduce it, but all we want to do is grow
“We acknowledge that the industry has challenges, the sport. We figure that we will get our piece of the pie if we
and we make it our day-to-day mission to find solutions,” succeed. We are going to keep working hard every day, and
Kronengold said. “Some of those solutions are straightfor- we are going to stick together with the rest of the industry to
ward, and others are incredibly challenging, but we are not grow the sport. I want to see more hunters getting into tar-
and we have never been the type of organization that sits get archery and more target shooters getting into hunting. I
and waits for other people to do something for us. That’s want to see families shooting together, and I want to see a
why our manufacturing is vertically integrated, and that’s lot more kids doing it. The industry can support thousands of
why we take an aggressive stance on the things that we feel new archers. We need more participation, and we are going
passionately about. The industry is in a hard place, but we to keep doing everything we can to grow participation.”
are not going to wait for anyone else to fix it for us. We are
going to make it part of PSE’s business strategy to drive im-
provements and fix everything we can. And we are doing all
of this while fully acknowledging that if we are successful,

then we are also benefiting our
competitors.”

46 INSIDE ARCHERY MARCH 2020