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Best Foot Forward

San Clemente-based Ocean Minded has spent the past year ramping up operations under a new parent.

The company, which makes leather sandals and accessories, is rolling out casual shoes, bags for men and women and some clothes.

It also has more than quadrupled the number of stores it sells to worldwide.

Colorado-based shoemaker Crocs Inc., which bought Ocean Minded last year to get into surf- and skate-inspired shoes, has been fueling the changes.

“Ocean Minded’s biggest growth opportunity is to continue expanding globally,” said Bob Tanner, director of marketing.

The company has piggybacked on the popularity of Crocs, which started a fanatical following with its rubber-like resin sandals in funky colors for kids, women and men. They’re sold in some 20,000 shops worldwide.

Ocean Minded is a lot smaller. It sold to some 500 shops around the time of Crocs’ 2007 buy.

Now it’s expanding. Ocean Minded is in some 3,000 stores worldwide, including 1,600 in the U.S.

Crocs’ Chief Executive Ronald Snyder said in a recent earnings call that Ocean Minded has grown outside of California, where it was founded it in 1996 by its president, Gary Ward.

Crocs paid $1.75 million in cash for Ocean Minded, which carved its own niche along the West Coast with environmental marketing and shoes made with recycled materials. Crocs said it will pay another $3.75 million to Ocean Minded if it hits earnings targets in the next three years.

The move is a good one for both companies, said Jeff Mintz, analyst at Wedbush Morgan Securities.

“Although (Ocean Minded) was a relatively small purchase for rapidly growing Crocs, it addressed a customer who might not have been interested in the core Crocs product,” Mintz said. “It helped Ocean Minded because the strength of the Crocs brand gave that company very good relationships with a huge number of distribution partners.”

Ocean Minded has been branching out.

The company plans to launch its first closed-toe shoe line in July, with three men’s and two women’s designs, Tanner said.

The shoes are made with recycled materials, including auto tires, hemp and bamboo, Tanner said.

They also feature Croc’s Croslite closed cell resin in the footbed inserts. The material makes shoes comfortable, lightweight, soft and odor resistant, according to the company.

With the launch, the company expects to draw customers beyond its “core surf” crowd, Tanner said.

“Ocean Minded was born on the beach, in the midst of surf culture, and our products will always be made with the 17- to 24-year-old male and female surf enthusiast in mind,” he said. “However, that does not mean our sales will be limited to that key demographic.”

People living thousands of miles away from the ocean “aspire to be ocean-minded and our products give them access to the beach/ocean lifestyle,” Tanner said.

The brand sells its wares in surf shops, mall chains such as Anaheim-based Pacific Sunwear of California Inc., sporting good stores and Dillards department stores.

It has some steep competition, Wedbush’s Mintz said.

Among them: San Clemente’s Rainbow Sandals Inc., Carlsbad-based Reef and surf companies with their own shoe lines, including Costa Mesa-based Volcom Inc. and Huntington Beach-based Quiksilver Inc.

Ocean Minded has tried to keep an edge through consistent marketing and clever retail displays, which can include custom fixtures or entire Ocean Minded branded sections, Tanner said.

The company also sponsors surfers, including Bethany Hamilton, who lost her arm a few years back in a shark attack.

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