I’ve been a loyal Simms customer ever since I bought my first pair of their neoprene waders sometime in the early 1980’s, and I believe they were much better than several other waders that I had owned before them. I personally took a pair or 2 of those waders back for repairs to Jackson Hole, WY where they were located a time or 2 when I was in the area, and I remember that their building there reminded me of an oversized garage. They offered custom wader sizes, which I had purchased, and their service was top notch.
In 1993, Simms was purchased by K.C. Walsh, who I understood was also a fly fisherman, and he moved their headquarters to Bozeman, just north of Interstate 90. I also stopped there several times for wader repairs, etc. and bought a pair of their first GoreTex waders which Simms was the first company to produce, I believe in the mid-1990’s. Again, I always felt their service was excellent, and while their original wader design wasn’t particularly good, it improved in subsequent years.
Beginning in 2001, my wife and I began spending our summers near Livingston, MT and frequently went to Bozeman, and I always looked at the Simms building whenever we drove by it on the highway. I remember seeing it expand in size there a time or 2, and they also expanded their product offerings during that time as well, to wading boots (a natural compliment to their waders) and to clothing, and other products as well.
At least a part of their waders (and perhaps other products) were made by persons working from their homes in the Bozeman area, and I remember seeing help wanted ads in the local newspaper from time to time. A friend of mine and I both bought one of their earlier Simms-branded collapsible wading staffs, which we both had to return for defects. I can’t remember the issues we had, but they handled it by promptly giving each of us a new wading staff.
Sometime around 2015 Simms again moved their headquarters about 10 miles southwest of Bozeman to Four Corners and expanded their building size once more. The Bozeman newspaper reported they operated out of a 66,000 sq ft multistory building, larger than the one in Bozeman. Business appeared to be increasing, but I remember their wader repair service time increased somewhat as well.
(As an aside, during the years that my wife and I spent our summers in Montana we were 18 miles south of Livingston, and 50 miles away from Simms in Four Corners. One summer, i think in 2116, a young fellow who was a manager of distribution at Simms, and his wife, built a Yurt to live in on top of the hillside across the road from us. My best friend and I regularly walked 3 miles most mornings on a dirt road up that hill where they had built their Yurt and that guy often passed us driving his Subaru down the road on his way to work. Their nearest neighbors at the time were about 1 mile from them, nearer to the main road. I would have been concerned about living in that tent in the winter cold and wind, as well as the blazing sun in the summer. I talked to the woman a short time after they had moved in and she said her main concern was rattlesnakes getting under their Yurt. I understand they made it through that first winter but they had moved away before we returned the next summer.)
I don’t fault anyone for the changes that are occurring in Simms, no more than those that are, or have taken place in other companies. I have enjoyed the wader innovations and improvements that Siimms have made over the past 40+ years, and will continue to use the Simms products that I presently own as long as they, and I, hold up. I have always bought what I considered the best quality products available in the market, at the lowest prices I could find, consistent with what I could afford, and intend to do so in the future. I believe in free markets, and freedom of choice, and even though that freedom results in some errors being made in the short run, I believe that we are ultimately better off in the long run.
