In This Issue
Generous Words
TEXpansion: Medical center brings jobs to Lakeway
Canadian baker cooks up recipe for success
Running retailer keeps community healthy
Partnering for Impact: How to sweeten incentives for retail development
Texas tops in weathering economy
Web Exclusive
Customer service drives Weakley-Watson’s longevity
Local Government
Steps for Success
Paul Carrozza
Austin’s RunTex has been in the running business for 20 years and promises a free run with every purchase of shoes.
RunTex has helped launch many nonprofit and charity-organized running events, and that community involvement has been key to its success.
“We’ve had great results from partnering with companies, nonprofits and institutions by helping them organize their own event and their own training programs,” says Paul Carrozza, RunTex’s owner and founder. “By helping them get started in these areas, it creates a relationship that can last a business’ lifetime.”
Visit www.runtex.com for more information about RunTex or its training programs.
Full Stride
Austin’s RunTex aims to keep runners
and local charities healthy.
Big parts of local communities can sometimes start with simple ideas.
“I started at about 5 years old with a childhood awareness of running and different running shoes,” says Paul Carrozza, founder and owner of RunTex, an Austin-based fitness gear and apparel store.
As Carrozza grew, so did his interest in running. But top-of-the-line running shoes were hard to find in stores. Carrozza’s first real running shoes were a pair of Adidas that a friend brought back from Germany. The Northern California native set out working with shoe vendors to “get the ones you saw in the magazines.” That experience served him well when he arrived on campus at Abilene Christian University, where he sold running shoes and gear from vendors to local athletes, quite literally out of his car trunk.
Carrozza took his vision south to Austin and quickly established similar relationships with shoe vendors. The first RunTex store opened in 1988. Sales at the location increased by about 600 percent that first year. RunTex worked with local nonprofit groups and created its own events.
“We had a formula based on running opportunities that piqued people’s interests,” Carrozza says. “The more events we held, the more people came into the store.”
Twenty years and thousands of miles and events later, the RunTex banner flies at a Central Texas event – often more than one – most weekends during the year. The Austin area sports a lineup of running events for all skill levels, from five-kilometer fun runs to a world-renowned marathon. They all aid in Austin Mayor Will Wynn’s goal of making Austin the fittest city in the nation. “Paul and RunTex are part of what makes Austin one of the most desirable cities in the country in which to live,” says Wynn.
In addition to shoes and events, RunTex coaches local athletes training for events worldwide. That community involvement has helped RunTex become a household name in Austin’s fitness scene – RunTex won a 2007 Greater Austin Business Award for its outstanding community relations and overall excellence in the community – and benefits RunTex’s event partners as well.
“If you look at the commerce that has formed around events – from T-shirt and food vendors to extra work for police personnel – it’s amazing what has developed,” Carrozza says.
Helping local athletes change their lives or their lifestyles and feel good about themselves, as well as improving the health of his community, is what keeps Carrozza and RunTex going.
“It’s about selling running and not running shoes,” he says. “If we couldn’t do what we do with our business, I wouldn’t want to be in the shoe business. As economic times go up and down, it sure is great to be a local company with a great community.”
For more information on the state’s business climate, visit www.TexasAhead.org. TR
