Pursuing His Love for Speed
By Bill Spring
When he was a boy growing up on an Iowa farm in the 1970s, Kent Harle idolized stunt cyclist Evel Knievel. His older brothers fed his interest in speed even before he started kindergarten, taking him on thrilling motorcycle rides around the farm.
By the time he was in second grade, Harle had his own cycle, and was hooked. "Me and my friends were on motorcycles pretty much every waking hour," he remembers.
In the winter, when the fields covered in snow, Harle and his buddies switched to snowmobiles.
When he wasn't riding over the snow, Harle was sitting at the kitchen table, drawing them on paper. He even tried to convince his dad to give up the farm and open up a family snowmobile dealership.
His father didn't bite, but that didn't stop Harle.
He went on to study industrial engineering at Iowa State, and is now the CEO and director of Redline Performance Products, poised to hit the snowmobile industry like an avalanche. The first of his company's revolutionary designs are scheduled to be on the market before the end of the year.
Harle began his professional life as a construction manager for an electrical contractor in Minneapolis, then moved to Energy Solutions International, a small company selling high performance lighting systems. In 1995, Harle relocated to Southern California, where he found both job success and his future wife.
In late 1996, growing Energy Solutions was sold to gigantic Northern States Power, and Harle found himself unhappy with the changes.
"It wasn't my cup of tea at all," he said.
Bristling under the new rules and regulations, Harle began discussing business ideas with friend and co-worker Chris Rodewald.
"Chris told me to throw practicality aside and asked me what I wanted to do," remembers Harle, "and I told him I thought there was a huge opportunity in the snowmobile industry."
A native Californian, Rodewald knew nothing about snowmobiles, but was willing to listen.
Taking a leap of faith with a third partner named Bill Savage, Harle and Rodewald quit their jobs at the end of 1997 and started what would eventually be called Redline. They also started TMAG Lighting, a temporary company that sold business lighting systems and existed only to raise money for Redline. In April of 2000, Harle shuttered the lighting company, and it was sink or swim based on the performance of the snowmobiles.
"By the time we were done with our first design," says Harle "It had turned into something pretty revolutionary."
"We went to our first trade show up in West Yellowstone in April of 1999." Harle remembers. "We took three prototypes, and there was not one thing that people in the industry had seen before. People were in awe, and we were like rock stars."
The other manufacturers took notice of Redline's innovations, including four-stroke engines, radically different suspension, rear exhaust, and eye-catching styling. The company even won a Popular Mechanics design and engineering award for 2001.
But the road from prototype to production vehicle was longer and bumpier than Harle had anticipated: "We thought we were twelve months away, but we were three years away."
Fundraising was one problem. At the height of the "new economy" in 1999, investors were only interested in Internet companies, and when the crash came in early 2000, there were few people willing to invest in anything at all.
The economic climate that followed September 11, 2001 made it more difficult, and Redline was forced to downsize.
Perfecting the snowmobiles was also difficult and time-consuming.
"We developed one system at a time," says Harle. "It's only this year that I've ridden one of our snowmobiles and said, 'wow, it's all together.'"
Harle and the Redline Snowmobile models will be featured in an upcoming episode of iDesign, a TV series that features cutting edge products and the ideas and people behind them.
Redline's first snowmobile, called the 800 Revolt will be delivered to buyers by the end of 2003, and the company has 28 dealers selling it. Reaction has been overwhelmingly positive.
"They think this is the greatest snowmobile ever made," Harle says, "and when they get it, it will be."
In the future, Harle plans to take on the ATV market, and ultimately, the motorcycle business. The kid who spent much of his childhood on motorcycles will soon be building them.
And despite the seriousness of the business, it's still partly about having a good time.
"You could put me on a 50cc bike in parking lot," says Harle, "and I'll have fun for the day. I'll ride anything."
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