E-force history and such.

[Biobob]

I noticed some discussion about the history of E-Force and such and
wanted to relay what I have been told. E-force was started in Hawaii
by Egan Inoue I was told. John Hooghe helped build it up before he
went to Transition. When Ektelon/Prince was bought by Benetton they
moved the operation from CA. to NJ. and most of the engineers stayed in
CA. and went to work with Wilson and E-force. I was told by a demo
squadron leader (not ED) that this is why Wilson has gotten so much
better. Lets see if we can fill some holes for people.

Brian
Druckenbroad

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[RBALLMOM]

You are totally correct in your history. Look at Wilson closely though - what
is their number one product? Hard to say- since they are into so many
different sports - but I would guess tennis racquets and equipment to be their
first priority.

E-Force is a true racquetball company whose number one priority is just that -
RACQUETBALL.

[John Varrill]

On Sat, May 22, 1999, 2:28am (EDT+4) bne...@my-dejanews.com (Biobob)
wrote:

-------------------------------

You're correct. Egan Inoue co-founded the company with Cecil Albao
about 10 years ago. Cecil sold the company to Ron Grimes around 1994 or
1995, and he later founded Kadai. Egan retired from professional play
in the early to mid '90s and became involved in martial arts. At one
time Egan had the world's fastest serve at 181 m.p.h.

I believe E-Force's first high end racquet was the Egan Inoue
"Signature" model, which later became the Predator. Egan used that
racquet for a while before he switched to the Answer (Terminator) and
then the Weapon (or Real Deal). When the Terminator first came out, it
was called the Hammer. Then Wilson told E-Force that they couldn't use
the Hammer name because Wilson had the rights it. (Anyone still have
an E-Force Hammer? That will become a collectors' item.) E-Force
changed the name to Answer, and then to Terminator. At one time or
another, Mike Guidry, Dan Obremski, Woody Clouse, and Tim Doyle were
sponsored by E-Force - Tim is still sponsored by them, while the rest
eventually went to other companies.

I heard that many of the engineers for Ektelon went to E-Force, and many
of the sales and marketing people went to Wilson when Ektelon merged
with Prince and moved from San Diego to New Jersey in the early to mid
'90s.