OrthoLite Founder, CEO Glenn Barrett Joins Industry Hall of Fame

OrthoLite founder and CEO, Glenn Barrett, was formally inducted into the 2024 Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame by the National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) during a ceremony in Phoenix, AZ, on May 21, 2024. Barrett was recognized by the NSGA for the significant impact OrthoLite’s open-cell PU foam insole solutions have made not only to footwear, but also to the sporting goods industry. OrthoLite is the world leader in branded footwear component technologies. 

In photo above, Glenn Barrett (right) is joined by John Beeson, the principal of Beeson Consulting and a longtime friend of Barrett (far left) and Hall of Fame chairman Larry Aasheim.

 “I am humbled and honored to receive this recognition alongside an admirable group of my industry peers,” says Barrett, founder and CEO of OrthoLite. “I’m incredibly proud of what this Hall of Fame honor says about OrthoLite’s  product and the team behind that product. Together, we created an entirely new category of materials to go inside of shoes. We identified a need and provided a solution that’s now universally accepted as a comfort and performance enhancement for all categories of footwear.”

Barrett revolutionized the footwear segment of the sporting goods industry from the inside out. While most public attention is paid to the outer style of footwear, OrthoLite, which Barrett founded in 1997, focused on the inside with an emphasis on the importance of comfort and performance.

This open-cell PU foam was the ideal technology to solve the problems occurring inside the shoe, offering a solution that was not only more comfortable, but it also provided a cooler, drier and healthier interior environment inside of the footwear. This product also proved to be easier on the planet by using five percent recycled outsole rubber waste material in the mix.

Today OrthoLite partners with more than 550 of the world’s leading footwear brands who trust OrthoLite to elevate the comfort, performance and sustainability of their footwear.

Barrett joins his fellow class of 2024 inductees: Cathy Pryor (Hibbett Sports), Karsten Solheim (PING Golf) and Mike Thompson (Rawlings). The foursome joins more than 180 retailers, team dealers, manufacturers and industry influencers who have been honored with induction into the Sporting Goods Industry Hall of Fame since it was established by the National Sporting Goods Association in 1955.

OrthoLite has provided athletes with another tool they need to succeed and OrthoLite’s products can be found in more than 600 million pairs of footwear a year. Because OrthoLite is U.S.-owned and operated and has production facilities in China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Spain, India and Brazil, it can work alongside its brand partners wherever they manufacture shoes.