Callaway Personalities

From Callaway Golf Apparel Sport and Collections 2002 Catalogs

By: Doug Smith

MIKE YAGLEY
Straight Shooter

Mike Yagley has always been interested in things that fly, from missiles to airplanes to golf balls. Flying is all about aerodynamics, and the indisputable key to golf ball design. Mike is the Vice President of Product Management for Callaway golf balls and as Mike puts it, "We have golf balls for every player in the game."

Mike's career has been all about making objects fly and move more efficiently. He worked on the Patriot warhead, the High Speed Civil Transport, planned flight routes for Boeing, and has been involved in design, development and testing of golf balls at Callaway since April of 1997. He has overseen development of Callaway's CTU 30, CB1, Rule 35, and HX balls.

Tasked by Ely Callaway to make it fun for everyone to play golf, Mike makes no distinction between pros or amateurs. He helps make golf balls that fly far, fly straight, and spin, for everyone.

RICHARD HELMSTETTER

Innovator

Richard Helmstetter doesn't use a briefcase; he prefers his "Where the Wild Things Are" bag. He is the Senior Executive Vice President, Chief of New Products at Callaway Golf. Rules and precedents have never stood in the way of his ability to conquer the “impossible,” and he is constantly striving to improve on his own best innovations. He has mastered excellence in the worlds of billiards and golf, and is an avid wine collector. Not concerned about his future or becoming bored, he knows that there will be many "nexts" for him in the years to come.

Helmstetter pool cues are considered among the best in the business. In college, he played pool in the student union, and decided he wanted his own cue. Instead of waiting to have a custom cue created, he decided to make his own and enrolled in a vocational woodworking class. After three tries, he made a pool cue he was happy with and soon after was awarded the first grant in history to study the pool cue.

In the late 1960's Helmstetter and his wife moved to Japan, where he continued to fine-tune his pool cues, as the sole owner and CEO of Adam, Ltd. While in Japan, he started making driver heads and graphite shafts, and became a consultant for Bridgestone.

In February 1985, he met Ely Callaway on a golf course in Palm Springs. Ely was developing Hickory Sticks and was constantly looking for ways to improve his clubs. Who better to bring aboard than Helmstetter. In 1986, Richard and his family moved to California, and he began designing Callaway golf clubs. Helmstetter most notably designed the Big Bertha, changing golf, and making the golf world more accessible to everyone. Helmstetter explains, "Big Bertha turned the driver from being the most feared club in your bag to being the most loved."

Richard Helmstetter sees no obstacles in life. He finds a way to work around them. He has known many pool hustlers, including the biggest of them all, Minnesota Fats. "A good hustler never loses, ever. He just makes it look like an accident [that he won]," Richard explains. He may be no hustler, but Helmstetter has never lost, ever.

JEFF COLTON

Father Figure

Jeff Colton's co-workers know he is a family man. Ask about his interests outside of work, they'll smile, nod knowingly and say "family." He is also quite accomplished in his field, with a degree in applied physics from Harvey Mudd. Jeff started at Callaway running the newly opened Richard C. Helmstetter Test center, and currently is the Program Director for Woods Research and Development.

Jeff started golfing in high school, using his father's country club membership. He would go to the driving range to hit balls, and eventually fell in love with the game. In high school, his handicap was 12-14, and dropped into the single digits in college. When he came to Callaway, his handicap was one or two, and he's now a scratch golfer. "It's definitely the clubs, not me," he jokes.

The family atmosphere of Callaway appeals to Jeff. It was there that he met his wife of four years, Debbi. He saw her one day, gave her a phone call, and "the rest is history," he says. They have a new home together, a 21-month-old daughter Ellie, and two dogs. Jeff says that becoming a Dad was the "biggest, most significant event in my life...the best thing is walking in the door every night, and seeing her smile."

MARSHALL MYRMAN

Synergy

Marshall Myrman grew up on the beach in Southern California, riding longboards before he was 10 years old. The adrenaline rush of surfing appealed to him, and he would hang out on the sand in Pacific Beach all day, every day as a teenager. You wouldn't expect a life long surfer to become Vice President of Manufacturing for the largest golf company in the world, managing resources, operations, and people.

Marshall is an accomplished photographer as well. He started out shooting the waves and their riders for Surfing and Surfer magazines. His photographic hobby soon meshed with his love of rock music, and he would spend just as much time sneaking his camera into shows in the 60's and 70's, shooting his rock idols. He never had time to learn guitar himself, but remembers sitting at the Sports Arena doors for hours, waiting to get into shows, and snaking his way to the front with his friends. He fondly recalls shows from Elvis to Led Zeppelin, to David Bowie, to the Climax Blues Band and the Winter Brothers. He doesn't sell his rock photos, but is considering putting together a coffee table book of his rock memories. "I would look at album covers and think, that's nothing compared to what I've got," he says.

Marshall started playing golf when he was about 8 years old, quit playing as a teenager, and returned to the game in his mid-twenties. "There was nothing more torturous than playing competitive golf when the surf was pumping," he explains. "The surf bug was much stronger than the golf bug." It’s still the bug that bites him most, and Marshall currently owns 15 boards. He surfs four or five times a week, whenever he can at his favorite spot, Big Rock, in La Jolla. The four women in his life, his wife and daughters of 14, 11, and 3, have all started surfing as well, following in his wake.

Marshall says that his job is about creating synergy, which is the combined action of two or more forces to achieve an effect greater than a single force alone could achieve. "Above all it's about creating a fun and challenging environment that encourages people to be productive and creative." The same synergy experienced when shooting the hollow barrel of a fast short wave, and paddling back out to do it all over again.

BRITA SCHWERM

Without A Net

Brita Schwerm has packed a lot into her life, from travel to sports to career, to education. She appreciates the opportunities she's had, but is modest about what she's done - more modest than most would be with her resume.

Brita is a former, top ranked professional volleyball player, playing on both the 4 person pro beach tour, and with a professional indoor team in Italy. When she returned home from Italy there was a letter waiting for her from the Olympic Committee, but she declined the offer. She'd been playing for 10 years and decided it was time for something else.

She decided to apply her MBA from Long Beach State, and the golf industry appealed to her interests and experience. She is currently a Market Research Analyst at Callaway, tracking pro tour usage, field research, and market reports.  She sees many similarities between golf and volleyball; the keys to both sports are timing, technique, practice, and skill. "It's good to see another sport where women are respected and paid well," she says.

Brita has accomplished a great deal in her life thus far: earned her Masters, traveled, played professional sports, and even done some modeling. "I tend to take on a lot at a quick pace," she explains. Currently, she is learning how to play tennis, working on her golf game, playing volleyball in a league with friends, and considering running in a 1/2 marathon this January. Many more opportunities await...

ALLISON ANTHONY

Balancing Act

Allison Anthony is best known at Callaway as “Putter Girl”. She oversees every aspect of putter production at Callaway, from market research to design, development, sales, advertising, and marketing. Though Callaway produces the number one putter in golf, Putter Girl herself is much more than astronomics, proprietary polyurethane and other such putter lingo.

Allison strives to enjoy every day of her life, as attested by her constant smile and upbeat personality. In addition to golf, her real loves are exercise and travel. She’s lived in London, France, and Austria, and has traveled throughout Europe. Friends she made there told her she was “more European than American.” After a back injury resulting from a car accident in college, Allison took up yoga to stretch and strengthen her back muscles.

Allison practices Ashtanga Yoga, also known as power yoga, a very physical means of working and stretching the muscles, breathing and relaxing. Yoga helps balance work and personal life, and, “helps tone and stretch every part of the body more than any exercise I’ve ever done.” The success of the Callaway putter is a repositioning of weight for better stability. Balance and control in life are just as important, if not more so, to Allison Anthony.