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“I knew we’d have to do something disruptive to build the brand,” says Balkcom.īut first, he’d need to establish a senior leadership team and acquire some ownership in the company. While the Humminbird Super Sixty was a new industry standard, Balkcom wasn’t one to rest on his laurels. The tragedy pushed the team to work even harder and by the end of 1977 Humminbird inched towards #1 in the marine electronics market and the company adopted a new name, Techsonic Industries, Inc. I looked at the board of directors and said, ‘I’m not much, but I’m all you got,’” says Balkcom. He passed away at age 42 from a congenital heart defect, which left me in a leadership position of 13 employees. “One Saturday morning Yank and I were out jogging on opposite ends of Eufaula and somebody pulled up alongside me and said Yank Dean had just dropped dead in the middle of the road. Then, in October of 1977, the company lost its CEO. So, the next 20 years I got to wear jeans and a baseball hat to work instead of a suit.” Yank’s eyes twinkled he was a classic entrepreneur.

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That position would be filled by Jim Balkcom, a West Point and Harvard Business School grad who had served in Vietnam.īalkcom recalls: “In October 1976 I showed up at the Eufaula Holiday Inn in my fancy three-piece pin-striped suit, and here Yank rides up on his motorcycle in jeans, a cowboy shirt, wooden beads around his neck, and full beard. Same reasons I’m still with Humminbird today.”Īlmost overnight, the business grew to $1.5 million, leading investors to recruit a COO to work with Yank Dean IV as CEO. By the time we got to the hotel, I was a ‘Bird man! You needed a good piece of electronics to do your job and the Super Sixty was reliable and easy to read. “I had just finished competing in the 1975 Bassmaster Classic on Currituck Sound, North Carolina, and I sat next to Yank Dean on the bus back from dinner.

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Through print, TV and tournaments, the team taught average anglers how to locate and catch fish faster, creating significant brand buzz.Īl Lindner remembers the day he joined the team.

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Humminbird’s stable of pro anglers quickly expanded to include Bill Dance, Jimmy Houston, Hank Parker, Al Lindner, and numerous others. Sales numbers grew exponentially and an entire new market segment was born. Then, in 1975, Humminbird introduced the first-ever waterproof depth sounder, the Humminbird Super Sixty, which became one of the best-selling fishfinders ever produced, altered the trajectory of sport fishing forever. As volume increased, Dean began sourcing parts and set up a production line of six people. Yank left a post at Texas Instruments in Dallas and moved back to Eufaula to oversee engineering and assume the role of CEO. Soon the expanding group of angel investors recruited an electrical engineer and Eufaula, Alabama native named Yank Dean IV. Since, it’s become synonymous with fish-finders, like Kleenex is to tissue paper. Still others say the name refers to the “humming” sound the early Depth Sounders produced when in operation.

My momma always called it ‘humminbird!’”Īs to why they chose to name the brand after a tiny bird, former Humminbird PR Manager, Larry Columbo, explains: “As I understand it, Tom Mann and the guys were sitting around a table throwing around brand names when somebody said, ‘What’s the fastest bird that flies? Tom Mann, also an Alabama game warden, jumped in, ‘That’d be the Humminbird!’ Tom had a real thick drawl and couldn’t pronounce the ‘g’ either!” I ain’t never heard of no humming-bird in my life.

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I already sent them my $300!’ About two weeks later Tom got the registration papers in the mail, and he walked into Jim Murphy’s office: ‘Looky here, I got it!’ Murphy inspected the papers and smiled, ‘Tom, that was absolutely brilliant, leaving the ‘g’ out of hummingbird.’ Tom laughed: ‘I didn’t know it had a ‘g’ in it. But what are your going to call it?’ Tom replied, ‘I’m gonna call it Humminbird, I’ve already filed for registration.’ And Jim said, ‘No Tom, you can’t get registration on a common name, that’s public domain.’ Tom shook his head, ‘They better register it. So Tom approached his investor buddy Jim Murphy of Eufaula’s American Builders: ‘You gotta see this thing! It’s going to revolutionize fishing!’ Tom took Jim out on the water and Jim was impressed. “As a great structure fisherman, Tom Mann had a real need for a good depth finder, so he was excited about what those first modified units could do compared to what was available. Longtime Humminbird pro Hank Parker knows the story well, having spent a great deal of time with the brand’s pioneers. One of the most entertaining stories of Humminbird’s early years involves how the company got its name.