The Interview

So when did the Vans open the doors for business?

Well they were building the factory throughout 1965 and they had they 'Opening in January' painted on the front but it wasn't ready. This was the year of Maxwell Smat so they had 'Would you believe February' added to the sign, but it actually opened on the first day of March,19966. The factory, the office, and the retail store were all located at 704 East Broadway.

The way they had the company set up was unique at the time, direct retailing shoes from a manufacturer, how did it all work?

The very first day his dad had probably 10 racks with empty boxes on them. Blue boxes were for men, orange boxes were for boys, the red boxes were kid's and the green boxes were for women. His dad was always a system type of guy. The first day they opened the doors,16 people came in and they had a sample of all the styles. They didn't even have names for the styles, they had numbers, #44 was the authentic deck shoe. In the 44's his dad had the white,navy blue, loden green and red. They didn't have black at first; it became the best seller in the later years.

Randy's

Randy's became the 3rd largest manufacturer of shoes in the US. But had a factory in Gardenvale California that was losing a million dollars a month. Paul Van Doren his brother Jim Van Doren and long time friend Gordon Lee were given the task of straightening out the factory, and after 8 months they turned the west coast factory around and it was doing better then the one in Boston.

Three months later Paul Van Doren sat his 5 kids down and announced that he was going to quit his job and start a new shoe company. "Don't worry we're going to be fine' he said to his children who weren't at all concerned. Their dad was fanatical about cleaning and they were hoping this meant they only had to wash his car every second day instead of every day as it was currently.

Vans factory

Paul Van Doren was born in 1930 and grew up in the Boston Area. When he was in 8th grade he realized he didn't like school and promptly left. He had a passion for horses and at the age of 141/2 he made his way to the race track. He was known as " Dutch the Clutch" and for a buck he would give you odds on the race. Paul's mother couldn't stand he wasn't working or going to school. She dragged him into the shoe factory where she worked and got gim a job making shoes and sweeping the factory floor.

In twenty years Paul worked his was up the ranks and became Executive Vice President of Randy's, a Boston based shoe manufacture. Randy's was well known at the time and canvas shoes for Bob Cousy, the flasy Boston Celtics legend whowas later voted one of th top 50 NBA players of all time.