An Inside Look at the Behemoth Athletic Company and How It's
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AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE BEHEMOTH ATHLETIC COMPANY AND HOW IT’S AFFECTING BaLTIMORE. BY MIKE UNGER | PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID COLWELL SHINING ARMOUR —REPRINTED WITH PERMIssION FROM BALTIMORE MagaZINE, August 2013 IssuE.— AUGUST 2013 | baltimoremagazine.net 173 CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: EMPLOYEES GET OFF THE WATER TAXI AT TIDE POINT TO START THEIR DAY AT UNDER ARMOUR; THE COMPANY'S ORIGINAL 2,400-SQUARE-FOOT OFFICE ON SOUTH SHARP STREET; UNDER ARMOUR'S 15,000-SQUARE-FOOT FACILITY IN PIGTOWN ON WICOMICO AND BUSH STREETS. NICOLE NDOENGES STROLLS ONTO THE WATER TAXI, sits on a Nplastic bench, leans back, and watches the Canton shore fade from view. No blaring car horns or wailing sirens pollute the air, no construction zones or red lights impede progress. “IF WE HAD SOMEONE VISITING, I’D HIRE MY The gentle hum of the boat’s motor, the they spend their days making would-be the company signed Georgia Tech as its Plank recalls of those early years. “If we had 2011, it bought the facility for a reported $58 reflection of bright sunshine off the calmly athletes like you and me better. FRIENDS TO COME IN AND first major client. It needed to leave grand- someone visiting, I’d hire my friends to come million and almost immediately mapped lapping blue water, and the sound of Some of the passengers hold travel coffee ma’s, and fast. Plank, a Kensington native in and sit in chairs behind rented computers out an ambitious expansion plan. Today, seagulls calling out as they glide through thermoses or their phones. Most clutch both. SIT IN CHAIRS BEHIND who, like so much of the non-Hon speaking and act like they were doing work.” 1,300 of its employees occupy six buildings the sky are the soundtrack of her morning Doenges, a graphic designer, has a yoga mat RENTED COMPUTERS world, associated Baltimore primarily with Enough got done that Under Armour on the campus. commute. with her. There’s a company-sponsored class the Orioles, Colts, and the Inner Harbor, quickly outgrew that space and moved to a “We’ve seen every inch of this city,” Plank This is rush hour? after work, one of the many perks, she says, AND ACT LIKE THEY essentially was a free agent. 15,000-square-foot facility on Bush Street says. “Bush Street was cool. The day we “It’s a really relaxing way to get my day that definitely elevate the job. “We were getting pushed to places that in Pigtown. By 2003, the company was moved we threw a big block party with keg started,” says Doenges, 26, who certainly The Water Taxi, free to the public WERE DOING WORK.” people thought were suitable for us, like bursting at the seams and signed a deal to stands and the whole nine yards. We played looks anything but stressed. “I don’t even and paid for in part by her employer, is out in Springfield, VA,” Plank says. “But move to the waterfront in Tide Point. Leav- ‘Movin’ On Up’ from The Jeffersons. We use my car most of the week.” another. Fifteen minutes after it leaves my partner who had just joined me, Kip ing the city, Plank says, was never an option. moved from across a scrap metal yard to She’s one of a half-dozen Under Ar- Canton Waterfront Park, it reaches Locust Fulks [now COO], was a lacrosse player, “When I looked at the factors, the culture the lap of luxury. We tell our people that this mour employees aboard on this sun- Point. Doenges grabs her bag, smiles, and ticed that the cotton T-shirts his teammates and I was thinking we should own lacrosse. and identity of Baltimore is one of the things campus should be the center of energy for ny but brisk May morning. They’re all says, “Thanks, Lar,” to Capt. Larry Pinker, wore under their jerseys constantly were Baltimore was a hotbed for that. I had been that attracted me as much as anything else,” our company globally. We’ve stuck a flag in young, fit, and sporting at least one item and sets off up the gleaming metal pier drenched in sweat. Thinking there must here a few times when I was in school. The he says. “We wanted to build a hard-edged, the ground here.” with the familiar interlocking UA logo toward the campus where a company is be a better way, he created a prototype that mayor [Governor Martin O’Malley] was blue-collar company, and that attitude fit that has become as inescapable in Balti- transforming a city. wicked moisture and kept the athletes cool this energetic guy from D.C. There were a with what Baltimore was. We had a chip on LARGER-THAN-LIFE PHOTOS of Under Ar- more as Natty Bohs and Old Bay. Or is it the other way around? and dry. Working from his grandmother’s lot of things that felt compelling.” our shoulder. I think our city still does, and mour athletes greet visitors who pass Like Microsoft in Seattle, FedEx in Washington, D.C., row house, Plank started After meeting with a friendly land- I think our company does.” through the front doors of the Ivory Build- Memphis, and Ford in Detroit, Under Ar- BY NOW THE MICROFIBER-TO-RICHES story of the company he’s built into a multi-billion- lord, Plank sealed the deal on his move In the former Proctor & Gamble plant, ing. (Each building in Tide Point is named mour has become a part of its home city’s Kevin Plank and Under Armour has be- dollar behemoth. to a 2,400-square-foot space on South Under Armour’s 25 or so employees oc- for a Proctor & Gamble product.) The play- fabric. come the stuff of business-school legend. In Under Armour’s move to Baltimore was Sharp Street. cupied about 20,000-square-feet. As the ers—Kemba Walker (basketball), Bryce The boat heads west toward Tide Point, 1995, Plank, special teams captain for the based partly on strategy, partly on practi- “It was myself, Kip, a bookkeeper, and company continued to grow, it gobbled up Harper (baseball), Sloane Stephens (ten- where they used to make detergent. Now, University of Maryland football team, no- cality, and partly on gut instinct. In 1999, another person who answered phones,” office space vacated by departing tenants. In nis)—are, perhaps like the company itself, 174 baltimoremagazine.net | AUGUST 2013 AUGUST 2013 | baltimoremagazine.net 175 “WE ENCOURAGE ACTIVE LIFESTYLES. YOU DON'T not yet superstars but hard-working young “We don’t have favorite teams,” Mirchin talents whose best days are yet to come. HAVE TO BE AN ATHLETE says. “If they’re not an Under Armour team, In the third-floor lobby, three framed they don’t exist.” Baltimore magazine stories proclaiming TO WORK HERE, BUT YOU As Plank’s alma mater and the company’s Under Armour one of the best places to home state flagship school, the University of work in the city hang alongside copies of NEED TO KNOW HOW TO Maryland is perhaps Under Armour’s most Plank’s business cards throughout the years. visible client. (There’s a 55-yard replica of its In the early days, he carried both one that COMPETE, AND YOU HAVE football field on the Tide Point campus.) In identified him as the president of the com- 2011, the company responded to the school’s pany and one with the title “sales manager.” TO HATE TO LOSE.” request to generate some excitement around Construction is underway on a free- the football program, redesigning the team’s standing visitors center in the middle of uniforms using the colorful state flag as the 21-acre campus, but for now, guests The workspace for many of the team- inspiration. When the primetime national report here. mates, as Under Armour calls its employ- television audience got its first glimpse dur- “We thought Tide Point and this city ees, is a maze of cubicles and seemingly ing the opening game, reaction was decid- fit our culture and our company,” says never-ending racks of clothing and shoes. edly mixed. Matt Mirchin, senior vice president There are several open spaces on most of “OH GOSH. Maryland uniforms. #Ew- of global brand and sports marketing. the floors, which have high ceilings and an wwwww!” LeBron James declared on “Blue-collar, inner-city tough. When peo- industrial feel. Many people have sports Twitter, where the uniforms were the top ple visit us for the first time, they say they memorabilia surrounding their desks—a trending topic. feel the energy. They say, ‘This is how we South Carolina football helmet, a University “We loved the fact that it generated such envisioned Under Armour.’” of Utah jersey. buzz,” Mirchin says. “Some of it was nega- 176 baltimoremagazine.net | AUGUST 2013 CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: A MORNING CLASS ON THE or not to use the service, but a commit- to chug by. Expansion plans call for a pe- PROMENADE; CUBICLES; THE PRODUCT-TESTING AREA NEXT TO THE INNOVATION LAB; THE ARMOUR39 WORKOUT- ment to physical fitness is strongly en- destrian overpass (which will be 100 yards, MONITORING SYSTEM; ITEMS FOR SALE AT THE HARBOR couraged, if not expected. the idea being for employees to sprint across EAST BRAND HOUSE; A BOOT-CAMP CLASS AT THE COMBINE TRAINING CENTER; SCENES FROM THE CAFETERIA. The Under Armour Combine Train- it) to connect the waterfront portion of the ing Center is a gym housed in the Tide campus to the other side, which houses the Building next door.