Saratoga News

Baseball caps carry the Class of 2000 logo.

Saratoga native capitalizes on the coming millennium

By Sarah Lombardo

With the millennium's end fast-approaching, Saratoga native Rich Soergel is doing more than planning for the year 2000, he's profiting from it.

Soergel and his business partners have patented the phrase "Class of 2000" and hope the phrase--and the caps, sweatshirts, T-shirts, key chains and money clips on which it is branded--will be some of the turn of the century's hottest items.

"We're designing a lot of different logos for a variety of ages, but we're not selling just to a class, we're catering to everyone," Soergel, vice-president of marketing and advertising and co-founder of Class of 2000 Inc., and president of Pacific Sportswear Company Inc., said. According to Soergel's numbers, an estimated 18.7 million people, from colleges and universities right down to nursery schools and kindergarten classes, will be calling themselves members of the class of 2000. And they, and their friends and relatives, might just want a little something to commemorate the occasion. But, Soergel said, it's not just students and their families. "We believe that we're a whole group of people who are going to graduate to the next millennium."

Soergel said sales for the Class of 2000 merchandise could reach well beyond the $100 million mark in the next three years.

Merchandise is already being carried by Miller's Outpost, Mercantile and Maurice's. Soergel said the company is also currently in negotiations with Sears, which he said is considering testing the line.

And he hasn't even gotten started. "The real big kickoff that we see for Class of 2000 will be in spring of '98," he said.

Turning a profit isn't new for the Saratoga High School alumnus. In the early 1980s while still a college student in San Diego, Soergel bought a hat- and patch-making business in El Cajon for a little more than $5,000. A cap collector himself, Soergel said he got interested in the business when he saw the company's name, Morris Designs, on the inside of one of his many baseball caps. A year after buying Morris Designs, he sold it for $15,000.

Soon after, Soergel started his own business, Pacific Sportswear Inc. "I guess I wanted to create my own nightmare instead of taking on somebody else's," he said. The company makes jacket, headwear and lapel pins. Pacific Sportswear is one of three companies for which Class of 2000 is the marketing and licensing firm.

"I have always had the entrepreneurial spirit, even at Redwood [Middle School]," he said. Back then, the merchandise included skateboards, with Soergel's business name burned into the bottom of each skateboard--with the help of his father, Bob.

Soergel's mother, Phyllis, said Rich would have excelled in anything he wanted to do. "I guess that's the Gemini in him," she said. "They always have to do their best. Everything he did, he felt he had to do it well."

But, Phyllis said, she always knew he'd go into business. "He always wanted to sell things," the Saratoga resident said. "I tried to sidetrack him once and tell him to be a doctor, but that didn't work."

But business has. And Soergel said he couldn't be happier. "I love it," he said. "There's a lot of freedom, but a lot of work. But I love it."

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