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In June 2010, with Star Trac actively looking for investment,
entrepreneur Michael Bruno came forward and acquired the company outright. Already producing equipment for other
companies in an 800,000sq ft manufacturing plant in Xiamen, China, Bruno added Star Trac to the already purchased
StairMaster® brand and began to rebuild. Here, he explains the challenges since his purchase, along with his vision for the future
You’re approaching the third anniversary since acquiring Star Trac. How has it been? Star Trac had been hit hard by the economy at a time when its strategy had anticipated growth. The company was at the brink of financial disaster and I knew there was an opportunity to take control and turn it around. Fate also played a part. I spoke with
Jim Doody, Star Trac’s former CEO and owner, who agreed to meet me in San Francisco to discuss a potential transaction. The next day I took my family out for dim sum and it was the best dim sum I’d ever eaten – and that’s saying something considering I lived in Asia for years. But the funniest thing happened after the meal. They brought out fortune cookies, and mine read: “The next few days are a lucky time for you. You can take a chance.” I still keep that fortune laminated to one of my business cards in my wallet. I can’t say that I make all my business decisions based on what fortune cookies tell me, but it seemed too much of a coincidence to ignore it. Looking back I probably didn’t realise
just how much of an investment it would take to build the company back up, but three years later I’m amazed and excited by how far we’ve come.
Michael Bruno says he is ‘a product man at heart’ and aims to extensively expand the Star Trac range
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What drew you to Star Trac? I always knew there was a strong product portfolio that I could improve and add to with my manufacturing capabilities at my
Read Health Club Management online at
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factory in China. There was also a strong loyalty to the Star Trac brand with many international key accounts and facility owners, many of whom I met in the first year. I took time to listen to their frustrations and hear about the challenges they’d faced over the years. I realised that, although they were disappointed, they all wanted to see us succeed. Many of the meetings were intense, but I knew the steps we needed to take operationally to regain their business and their belief in the Star Trac brand – and that’s exactly what we did. The biggest issue with the former Star
Trac had become customer service. The need for significant improvement was obvious to me and it was what Star Trac customers missed most of all. Service for me was the number one problem that we had to address, and we will not stop in this area until we are known for being the best in the industry.
What steps did it take to rebuild? We launched two major initiatives in the first 24 months, as Core Health and Fitness took over Star Trac. Firstly, we needed to create operational efficiency by consolidating the StairMaster® and Star Trac employee resources and bringing the shared services of finance, support, inside sales, engineering and quality under the Core umbrella. With Dustin Grosz as the president of Core Heath and Fitness, we knew we could create a parent company that would
July 2013 © Cybertrek 2013
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