As Chief Executive Officer of the world’s premier headwear brand, Chris Koch is celebrating his 30-year anniversary at the company he grew up knowing and loving.

Chris started working at New Era after graduating from high school. At that time, New Era was a small, family-owned company.

Working in the family business during the day and towards a degree in business at a local college in the evening, Chris’ goal, even at that young age, was to carry on the family heritage as the fourth generation Koch to lead the company.

Diving right in, Chris worked in various departments within the company including transportation, distribution logistics, production, R & D and engineering. The hard work surely paid off because Chris can literally make a cap from start to finish. He can perform all 22 steps required to make New Era’s signature 59Fifty fitted cap!

In 1988, his career path shifted toward sales. A natural at establishing good rapport with retail accounts, it’s no wonder that within 2 years, Chris was promoted to Vice President of Sales and under his direction, the company saw an annual growth rate of 20%.

In 1992, he was promoted to President of New Era. A visionary with great ambition, Chris set his sights on numerous goals including making New Era the exclusive supplier of on-field headwear for Major League Baseball, expanding the business into global markets, becoming a recognized and dominant headwear brand, and continuing to build a strong corporate management infrastructure to support the growth.

Managing the reins as CEO since 2002, Chris’ aggressive vision of doubling the size of New Era by 2006 was accomplished a year ahead of schedule and, currently, New Era is on track to double its size again by 2010. Under his leadership, New Era has become the dominate headwear brand around the world. New Era is the preferred headwear of athletes, entertainers and musicians and was recently featured on the runways at Fashion Week in Paris.

In his spare time, Chris enjoys being with his family. And when he goes out to “play”, you’ll most likely find him playing golf, skiing, snowboarding or enjoying the water.

But his obsession lies in collecting motorcycles. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of New Era’s 59Fifty cap, Chris couldn’t resist having a custom New Era Bourget Chopper made with authentic 59Fifty branding. The bike is a true testament of two things Chris loves: motorcycles and New Era Cap.