Bowtech to leave Eugene after 27 years, laying off 43 employees

Bowtech Archery, a fast-growing manufacturer and distributor of bows and gear, is moving its operations to Texas after more than two decades in Eugene.

The company was founded in Eugene in 1999 and swelled over the following years. As sales surged, it acquired companies including Diamond Archery, Excalibur, Black Gold, TightSpot, RipCord and Octane.

It has spent much of the past two decades under changing corporate ownership. Bowtech was first acquired by Savage Sports in 2007; the company later became part of Pure Archery Group, which was purchased in 2022 by Texas-based private investment firm JDH Capital.

The company’s headquarters, a 50,000 square-foot facility off Highway 99, houses office space, production operations and the Bowtech Factory Pro Shop. Its final day of business is Sept. 5. A smaller Bowtech manufacturing plant on Airport Road will also close. 

The company will lay off 43 employees as part of the relocation, according to a notice sent to the state’s Disclocated Worker Unit. The facility’s permanent date of closure is “on or around” Feb. 28, 2027, per the notice. 

Reached for comment, Todd Snader, Bowtech’s director of marketing, declined to provide the number of employees losing their jobs.

“What I can tell you is that the relocation does impact positions in Oregon, and we recognize the significance of that,” he told Lookout Eugene-Springfield. “Our employees were notified directly before the public announcement, and we’ve been working with impacted team members throughout the transition.”

Bowtech employs about 250 people across its operations in the United States, including in Oregon, Montana and Michigan. In 2003, before the company expanded, it employed 51 local employees, with plans to hire 10 to 15 more. 

Jackson Huston, the manager of Bowtech’s factory shop, said some, but not all of the four employees employed at the retail store were offered relocation. He said he’s been coming to the store since he was 8 years old, and always dreamed about working there.

“It’s always been a part of my life and my whole family, that’s how we got into archery was this place, and I would say that’s a lot of people around here,” he said. “It’s going to be a big hole. We’re definitely losing a lot, and a lot of the customers are not happy.”

Bowtech once billed itself as the fastest-growing bow company in history. The company was founded by John Strasheim and Kevin Strother, who both lost money in the closure of the Junction City company Oregon Bow, the Register-Guard reported in 2002. 

Strother had designed and patented a part of the bows being sold by Oregon Bow, and he and Strasheim tried, unsuccessfully, to get bow makers to license Strother’s technology, leading them to launch their own company. They told the Register-Guard that the company’s plans were “to grow real slow, but it didn’t work out that way.”

That year, the company sold about 15,000 bows and posted sales of $6 million, making it the ninth or 10th largest bow maker in the United States, according to a SGB Media report. Bowtech forecasted selling roughly 27,500 bows and bringing in about $13 million in sales in 2003. 

Relocation to Texas

Bowtech’s relocation to Texas is centered on long-term growth and “operational investment,” according to a company press release. 

The company will move to a new facility in Houston that it hopes to transform into a “true ‘Bowtech Experience’ destination.” The operational transition will occur in phases throughout 2026, according to the release. The company is currently hiring in Houston.

“We ask for a little grace as our teams work through this transition,” Colin Legge, Bowtech’s CEO, said in the press release. “We are building for the future while continuing to operate at full speed. Our goal is to keep downtime to an absolute minimum, continue supporting our customers throughout the move, and come out of this transition stronger than ever as we head into 2027.”

Huston said Bowtech’s leadership has been planning the relocation for roughly 18 months or longer. The company needed to reautomate many of its machines and the Eugene facility needed work, he said. 

“A lot of our ownership’s in Texas, and they decided that instead of throwing a bunch of cash into this place and trying to redo everything and do all that, they saw it as a better decision to go over there and relocate and kind of start afresh with a new customer base,” he said.

He said thousands of people will be affected by the closure, naming The Bow Rack in Springfield as the only other nearby archery store. The Bow Rack may start picking up Bowtech products, he said, but nothing is decided. 

“We’re incredibly grateful for everyone who walked through our doors, trusted us with your equipment, shared stories, and made this shop a special place,” the company wrote in a Aug. 4 Facebook post. “Your support, loyalty, and passion for archery have meant the world to our team.”

Huston said store employees want to hold a customer appreciation celebration, but the store is so busy that he doesn’t know if they’ll have the time. 

“I’ve been buried,” he said.

Brittany Quick-Warner, the president and CEO of the Eugene Area Chamber of Commerce, said the chamber is “incredibly disappointed” to see the region lose good jobs.

“We cannot treat this as a one-off event,” she wrote in an email, pointing to recent research documenting a “troubling pattern of businesses leaving, downsizing, or choosing to grow elsewhere” in Oregon.

She added: “As a region and state, we need to take these trends seriously and focus on creating a more competitive environment where these employers can successfully invest and grow jobs and opportunities without having to leave for another state.”