Bob Sartor, a man who relishes challenge, spent part of his youth in Montreal stopping hockey pucks with his head. That may explain his resilience while under the gun as chief executive officer of the Forzani Group.

Since taking over the reins of Canada's largest sporting goods retailer in early 2003 as the successor to company founder John Forzani, the Forzani Group, marred by disappointing financials, has been in the penalty box with frustrated investors.

Yet, the 48-year-old Sartor, who has been with Forzani since 1997 when he was hired as chief financial officer, has firmly stood his ground amid the criticism and remained focused on the big picture in attempting to steer the company's slumping operations back on track. A passionate and unhelmeted Sartor hardly blinked as he went one-on-one with the Edge in this interview at his Calgary office.

1. Did you play sports as a youngster?

Dave Olecko, Business Edge
Bob Sartor's love of sports, including basketball as a youngster in Montreal, keeps the CEO of the Forzani Group on his toes in the corporate world.

"Yes. I played organized basketball on some rep teams in Montreal city leagues for about four or five years. Everybody else played hockey and I tried that, too. Before the advent of face masks and helmets, I managed to make a career of stopping pucks with my head and my parents decided it would be a good idea if I played basketball. I was a Habs (Montreal Canadiens) fan and my hero was Jean Beliveau (former Canadiens captain)."

2. You spent four years with Kraft General Foods Canada early in your career. What did you gain from that experience?

"It was the first time in my life that I actually had to manage people. You had to work with all kinds of personalities. That's the first time I realized that managing people is probably one of the most difficult things that you do in business. For the first time in my life, I realized that my own personal skills, the knowledge that I'd acquired and the experiences that I had were only of so much use to me in a bigger environment. I had to manage multiple skill levels to move my part of the business forward. That was a hugely valuable experience because it forced me to approach business issues in a completely different manner. I realized very quickly that unless I got very good at working with people and managing people, I would have very limited success."

3. What was your first exposure to the retail industry?

"I worked for a company called Bolands (based in Halifax), a wholly owned subsidiary of the Oshawa Group. I went there because it was an opportunity to try and fix something that was broken. It appealed to me on two fronts. No. 1, it was a job with much broader responsibility than I was used to. I thought I could only learn and get better by getting a job that was outside of my comfort zone. I also felt it was an opportunity to take some of the skills I'd previously learned in restructuring of companies and apply that to a company that was not doing very well at the time. I had a wonderful time there. It was a real experience for me to work with people from different parts of the Atlantic provinces. There was a real zest for life there. Business was important, but you had to have fun while doing it. And that's something else I learned too, that you had to have fun. If you wake up in the morning and stare at the ceiling and go, 'I've got to go back in there,' it's not going to be a very good time. After working for Bolands and the Oshawa Group, I joined Avenor (a forest products company). I was there for less than 18 months (as corporate controller) and got out as quickly as I could."

4. Why did you leave Avenor?

"You know what? I was probably hooked on the adrenaline that is retail, the fast pace of retail, the tremendous interaction with people and having to make literally hundreds of decisions a day. Retail truly is for people who become retail junkies. It's almost like a narcotic. It's exciting, every day is different and every day is dynamic. Obviously, in the pulp and paper business, you basically have mills which you build. Once they're built, they stay there for 30 years and then there's trees that grow. So it just wasn't for me."

5. How did you hook up with John Forzani and the Forzani Group in 1997?

"I got a phone call from a recruitment individual that John Forzani (then Forzani's CEO) had hired. I met this fella and, based on a breakfast interview with him, I wasn't terribly impressed. But I said, 'You know what, I'll meet with John.' I met John in Toronto at an airport hotel and instantly liked the man. He was an absolutely genuine guy and absolutely honest and nice. I came out here and visited the company and did what I call my due diligence. John was very open to me and said the company was in difficulty. I said, 'ok, I need to understand how much difficulty.' And he opened the books for me. He let me ask all the questions and meet everyone I wanted to meet. I thought there was risk, but I knew there was going to be a lot of action and activity here. So I decided to come on board (as chief financial officer)."

6. You've spoken about the importance of having fun in your work. With all the pressure of running a company like Forzani with all its challenges, are you still having fun?

Dave Olecko, Business Edge
Forzani Group CEO Bob Sartor has a wide range of stores under the sporting goods retailer's banner, including Sport Chek.

"I always set a career goal to continuously push the envelope. One of the reasons I moved around a lot earlier in my career is that I don't like to get too comfortable in a job. I like being a little uncomfortable because it forces you to think and it forces you to re-evaluate everything you do. When you get comfortable, you can get lazy, both intellectually and creatively. And one of the things about this company is that it's not just being a CEO but being a CEO of a dynamic company with over 10,000 employees, a company that operates in every province, a company that has wholesale divisions that do business internationally. We're a publicly listed company with all the pressures that quarterly releases bring. As a CEO, I have to juggle what's good for the business long term versus what's good for the business this quarter. And I will admit that long term wins every time with me. That's the only way to think."

7. So how do you deal with all the pressure, particularly considering Forzani's recent disappointing results?

"There are a couple of things that help me deal with that. I have a great, stable family which is very helpful. I'm celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary this year, which is a big deal. Most of the friends that I knew in high school and university can't say that, unfortunately. We're very active. My wife (Andrea) and I have a place in Canmore and we spend a lot of time hiking and skiing in the winter. I think the physical aspect takes a lot of the stress away. We have a great fitness facility in this building (office) so, when I'm not travelling, I use the gym here four times a week. I also do a pretty good job of compartmentalizing my life. When I am home with family, no matter what has happened during the day, I try to focus on family - recognizing that, as a wise man (Leonard Eisen of the Oshawa Group) once said to me at a time of crisis early in my career, the sun always rises the next morning."

8. How do you think your management style differs from John Forzani's?

"We have different styles for sure. John is far more outgoing and personable. I mean, he has a natural ability to immediately connect with people. He's gregarious and wears his heart on his sleeve. And I'm probably more reserved when I first meet people. I'm not a cold fish but whereas John has a natural ability to instantly connect with people, it takes me longer. That's one fundamental difference from a personality perspective. From a management perspective, I probably manage on a more structured and formal basis than John's approach would be."

9. Since you became CEO two years ago, the stock is down about 30 per cent. To what do you attribute the company's poor performance?

"Speaking to our board recently, I named off four or five really good high-profile U.S. retailers and I asked them, 'What do they all have in common?' They said, 'They're all really great integrated retailers.' I said: 'That's right, but do you know what else they all have in common? They've all had periods in the last five years where they've gone through two years of negative comparable store sales and earnings slumps because they're cyclical businesses that have to connect with consumers.' And every once in a while in a cyclical business, for reasons either external, internal or both, you don't connect with the consumer. I think that's what happened with Sport Chek (stores) - and it began well before my two years here as CEO, probably around 2001. We basically continued to build a lot of stores and we didn't spend a lot of time renovating older stores and our chain got tired looking. We also got lazy with our inventory. Rather than thinking, 'What does the consumer want, what's the latest trend, what do we want to do on the clothing side?' we just said, 'Well, what did we sell last year and let's buy a little more of that and maybe add a little or deduct a little based on what we think.' " 10. So what action are you taking to address those issues?

"We've retooled our stores and we've renovated all of our old stores. We've completely ripped apart our assortment, particularly on the apparel side. We've brought in some really good-quality people with highly specialized skills to help us. We have a new apparel person out of the U.S. and a new person in our merchandising area. So I expect better things going forward."

11. What are you going to do about the weather (Sartor has used weather as a factor in declining sales)?

"We are a cyclical business and, honestly, nothing. We have to manage our business assuming what I would call middle-of-the-road business conditions. We can't assume that we're always going to get an early cold and snowy winter or an early spring and a long, hot summer. What you have to do is manage your assortment and your buying accordingly. If there's no snow and they close the hills in Alberta and B.C., as they did last winter, we're going to have a crappy ski year."

12. Your mission statement says you are to provide the best customer shopping experience, yet many Sport Chek customers complain about high-pressure sales and a lack of knowledge of the products. How challenging is it for your company to hire quality staff?

"There's two pieces to that one. The first one is hiring the right kind of staff and that process requires what I would call a deliberate mapping of the kind of personality you're looking for and then crafting a recruitment methodology with your human resources workforce planning group to do that. So we are doing that. The second more difficult piece, once you get the right mindset and the right person at store level, is providing them with an environment in which they can learn how to sell and learn about the product. One of the challenges we have is that a lot of the folks we hire are young and we have to make sure their social skills are such that they don't come across as high pressure because we have a base salary plus commission. And you're right, that can be a challenge. But I can tell you that from a store experience perspective, I used to probably get four complaints for every kudo from consumers. I typically now will get far more kudos than complaints."

13. Do you think the company puts too much pressure on sales staff with the commission incentives?

"Well, this is not like a car dealership. The lowest guy on the totem pole doesn't get axed at the end of the month kind of thing. It's more a question of making sure our people understand the products. So when people walk in, they basically have to take what we call a PK or product knowledge training. They also have to take selling skills training. The bigger issue really comes when some individuals who are naturally outgoing get aggressive because they want to drive their sales. And really we rely on our store management to make sure that kind of stuff doesn't happen and frankly we have let people go who have been too aggressive. But the big challenge in retail is the vast majority of the workforce is part-time because of the flexibility in hours required. And the turnover is far higher than most other industries, not just at Forzani but any other retailer. One of the things we're doing now is providing specialized selling skills. We bring in our full-time sales associates now and tell them we need them to know everything there is to know about the products we carry, their use, their composition and their relative value in relation to similar other products we carry. And that's a massive investment. To my knowledge, we're probably the only retailer that has invested this kind of money in product knowledge."

14. Forzani has been fined by the Competition Bureau for misleading sales practices. What's the company doing to restore credibility over that issue?

"That's an interesting one. Suffice to say we agreed to disagree. Forzani, just for the record, absolutely never in its view misled consumers. The bureau took an interpretation of the Competition Act that Forzani still disputes. We agreed to resolve this only to not have to go through years and years of protracted legislation. The final chapter on that one hasn't been written. The reality of the situation is that we had an agreement with the bureau, and in fact if people were to read our consent agreement they would see that Forzani vehemently denied that they did anything wrong. At the end of the day what has to happen is that, in the Canadian retail landscape, there has to be one rule. And a rule that applies for Forzani should apply for all other retailers."

15. Five years ago, John Forzani told the Edge his five-year goal was to achieve $1 billion in sales for 2005, a target you're close to reaching. What's your vision for 2010?

"We believe we can do at retail $2 billion (in sales in 2010) and it's certainly not a stretch to do that based on the growth vehicles we have now. And our view is that our EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margins should be similar to the best-in-class sporting goods retailers in the U.S., which would mean it would be in the 12-per-cent range. That would be a significant jump from where we are now."

16. What strategy will you employ in pursuing those goals?

"The strategy is very straightforward. On the retail side, it's to make sure our stores are always fresh and new. It's to constantly rethink our assortment (of products) from the ground up every year as opposed to same-old, same-old. It's to continue to strategically add pieces to our business that make sense to add. We're sort of like a gangly teenager. We've gone from a $340-million company to a billion-dollar business pretty rapidly. Now that we have this volume, we have to make it as efficient as possible."

17. Do you think Forzani might be a takeover target for a U.S. sporting goods retailer?

"We're a widely held company and anything's possible. But do I think that somebody would be looking at us right now? No."

18. As you sit in here, how do you feel about the company and its prospects?

"I feel great about it. The problem with retail is that there are literally thousands of moving parts, so when you see the business starting to slide, you know as a long-time retailer that it's not going to turn on a dime. This is like an aircraft carrier. It's a big company with lots of moving parts. So it takes a lot of time but it's very gratifying when all of a sudden you've taken all those moving parts, put them all together in that wonderful bouillabaisse you call a retail business."

19. Forzani has been a big booster of charitable events. What does that mean to you?

"The charitable events boost has really been under the Forzani Foundation moniker for some time now. Several years ago, we established this foundation that is run independently from the company. The company contributes to the foundation and the foundation has its own charter and does its own thing. I really believe it's critical for organizations like ours to have a footprint that is all over Canada and employ thousands of people to get involved in the community."

20. Ideally, how long do you hope to remain as CEO of Forzani?

"I'd like to do it as long as I'm having fun. This is exceedingly stimulating. Retail is unbelievable. Being busy sure beats waiting for the phone to ring and wondering what else you're going to do. Keeping busy is great because it just keeps your mind active."

Bob Sartor

* Title: CEO, Forzani Group Ltd.

* Born/raised/age: Chibougamau, Que; Chibougamau/Montreal/48.

* Education: Concordia University, bachelor of commerce; McGill University, chartered accountant.

* Family: Wife Andrea, three children.

* Career: Prior to joining Forzani Group as chief financial officer in 1997, Sartor was corporate controller with Avenor Inc. from 1995 to 1996. He has also held various roles in management, treasury and financial planning with other companies, including the Oshawa Group and its subsidiary Bolands and Kraft General Foods Canada.

* Boyhood idol: Jean Beliveau.

* Favourite pastime: Hiking.

* Last Book Read: The Trouble With Islam.

Forzani Group Ltd.

* Brass: Bob Sartor, CEO; Bill Gregson, president/chief operating officer; Richard Burnet, VP, chief financial officer; John Forzani, founding chairman.

* Profile: The Forzani Group is Canada's largest sporting goods retailer and only national sporting goods retailer with 252 corporate stores and 194 franchise stores under numerous banners, including Sport Chek, Coast Mountain Sports, Sport Mart, National Sports, Sports Experts and Nevada Bob's.

* History: The company was founded in 1974 by John Forzani and three other members of the Calgary Stampeders football club. It started with one store - Forzani's Locker Room.

* Market Cap: $398 million.

* Recent Stock Price (TSX:FGL): $12.10 (52-week range, $10.02-$14.41).

* Web Watch: www.forzanigroup.com

* Head Office: 824 41 Ave. N.E., Calgary, T2E 3R3.

* Phone/Fax: 403-717-1400/ 717-1393.

(Gyle Konotopetz can be reached at gyle@businessedge.ca)