In the world of sports footwear, Icaro Olivieri‘s name evokes patents, innovation, success. In Montebelluna, his figure is almost legendary. The specialized website Sporting Goods Intelligence has listed him among the 15 most significant inventors in the history of the sporting article.
The industrial history of Icaro Olivieri, who is now 84 years old, was reconstructed for the first time in its entirety by journalist Daniele Ferrazza, who collected the testimony of the protagonist, his collaborators, his competitors and many other sources, historical and academic. A research work that became a book entitled “Icaro: curiosità, visione e ingegno dell’italiano che cambiò l’hockey.”
The work was presented in Montebelluna on Saturday, october 5, in the auditorium of the municipal library by Professor Marco Bettiol, professor of Economics and Business Management at the Department of Economics and Business Sciences at the University of Padua. Greetings will be given by the mayor of Montebelluna, Adalberto Bordin, the president of the Treviso and Belluno Chamber of Commerce, Mario Pozza, and the general manager of Confindustria Veneto Est, Gianmarco Russo.
Born in Lecco and the son of an artisan, Icaro Olivieri arrived in his early twenties in the Veneto region, where he first set out to produce levers and hooks for the sports shoe world and helped industrialize-thanks to advanced solutions in injection molding machines-the production process of ski boots. Right at the moment of transition from leather to plastic.
Not satisfied, at 35, he decides to go to Canada and open a hockey skate factory: I saw the largest Canadian skate factory and realized that we were light years ahead. He then brought the industrial model from Veneto to the North American country, the home of hockey, and before long his company, Micron, became a formidable competitor in the industry. Then, thanks to the patent of a blade drowned in the hull and welded with special resistant materials, a concept invented in Montebelluna together with his historical collaborators, Icaro Olivieri becomes in a short span of time the largest field hockey skate manufacturer in the world. And his Icaro Olivieri Spa, Montebelluna factory, an international benchmark for all those applying the injection molding system.
A few years later, the most important Canadian and therefore world hockey brand knocked on his door: Bauer, whose shareholders proposed an agreement with his small company to develop production along the lines introduced by Olivieri. Thus was born the Warrington Group, a conglomerate comprising some 20 brands, including Greb, Hush Puppies, Kodiak, Santana, Trappeur, Kerma, Tyrol Sports, Caber, and Lange.
In 1988 it was Icaro Olivieri who bought a majority stake in Bauer, which became the flagship brand of a small sporting goods empire. His company-named Canstar Sports Inc. – is listed on the Nasqad and in Toronto, and its shares within a few years quadruple in value.
In 1995 Nike, eager to enter the skate market through the front door, launches an Opa on Canstar, valuing it at $395 million, and becomes its majority shareholder.
At 52, Icaro Olivieri returns to Europe and applies his talents to agricultural and real estate investments. He is currently one of the largest oil producers in Spain, where he owns a seven-thousand-hectare estate. He devotes himself to major real estate operations in Verona and Lecco.
It is an honor and a particular pride – says President of the Chamber of Commerce of Treviso -Belluno|Dolomiti Mario Pozza – to know a great business ingenuity like Icaro Olivieri who, in terms of what he has accomplished, represents an example of an entrepreneur who saw, even at the time, the world as the theater of action to apply his unique process and product inventions. A made in Italy that was able to conquer the world’s major brands.
