The story of the origin of the world famous brand is unknown to almost all of its hundreds of thousand consumers though and is quite interesting. Bruce Katz's father was also in the shoes business and when young Bruce was about twenty three years old in the summer of 1971 he wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with the business of making shoes as he had seen his father struggle in the industry and had seen his business rise and fall. Katz was an avid sailor and he had an ambition of sailing around the world but unfortunately or fortunately depending upon which way you look at it, he did not have the money necessary to fulfil this dream. He thought that he would finance his dream by selling some of his father's shoes. He dug out some pairs of these shoes and took them to a store in Rockport city in the state of Massachusetts in his Volkswagen bus and started selling them. Through some quirk of fate, the shoes were a massive hit and sales were so good that Katz started a brand with the same name as the city and within a few months Mr Katz had traded in his ancient Volkswagen bus for a Mercedes Benz. The rest as they say is history.