Running Shoes for the person with a larger foot

Company is taking a run at the market

By Jeff CaplanStar-Telegram Staff Writer

EL PASO - This is one far-out place to find Dan Norton. This is the man who constructed Carl Lewis’ shoes at Nike. Helped develop the HydroFlow system at Brooks. Worked at Asics and led adidas’ advanced concepts team in Germany.
“Carl said something to me once: ‘You design me a long-jump shoe that will help me jump higher, I can jump longer,’ ” Norton said. “I designed a shoe that he broke the indoor world record in the first time he used it. And now every shoe company in the world uses that.”
For decades, a handful of established powers have dominated the running shoe industry, and Norton has long been a home-run hitter. But for Norton to be out here, in the northern Chihuahuan Desert on the edge of West Texas, well, he seemingly might as well be on Mars.
Yet, Norton chose this hitching post. He bought a house here, moved his wife and kids here, four hours away from just about anywhere.
And he is busier than ever. Prototypes, drawings, concepts and all brands and styles of shoes crowd his desk in his square office inside the modest headquarters of a spunky startup called Spira Footwear. This evolving, 20-person company believes that it is, honest to goodness, on the cusp of rocking the running shoe world.
“This will probably be the year we quit being called a startup company,” said Norton, Spira’s vice president of product development. “This year they will see we’re a player.”

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