HARLEY DAVIDSON

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The first thing Gaye Littell did after wrapping up Harley Davidson’s 95th anniversary blowout this summer was de-brief Harley’s staff to start planning for the 100th. The second thing she did was go on sabbatical. A few months in quiet Asheville, NC, was just the antidote for hosting 100,000 bikers and a dozen corporate sponsors for a week’s worth of rallies, parades and concerts in Harley’s hometown, Milwaukee.

“She was always the 1/2rst one there and the last to leave,” says Ed Hanrahan, Littell’s second in command on the event. “She set the pace for everyone else, and set a very high standard.”

Harley made at least $1.1 million from the event, and didn’t spend a dime hosting it. The company funded its anniversary event through sales of tickets and commemorative items, and sponsorship fees from Miller Brewing Co., Chrysler’s Dodge Trucks, Taco Bell, and PepsiCo, Ameritech, AT&T, and VH-1. Harley donated all its $1.1 million in anniversary profits to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, and expects to donate more from sales of commemorative videos.

Harley doesn’t look for a quick sales bump from marketing events – after all, people wait six months to two years for bikes, so it’s tough to measure any incremental waiting list. The 95th was a success “because we all had fun,” says vp-marketing Joanne Bischmann. But you can bet it also sold bikes, clothing, and accessories: Harley sales jumped 14 percent to $1.5 billion for nine months ended Sept. 27. Its 1997 sales of $1.7 billion were up 15 percent from the year before.

This was Littell’s second stint as party coordinator for Harley – yet she’s never been a full-time Harley employee. This year Littell worked as an independent contractor, overseeing sponsorships and promotions, and coordinating the 98 committees that Harley formed to handle details of the anniversary. There was the celebrity committee, inviting celeb riders and booking hotels for them; and the wedding committee, coordinating the dozen or so weddings planned for the anniversary weekend. Littell says working with the 126 Harley employees who volunteered to chair committees was the best part of her job. “They have such a talented staff,” Littell says. “They bent over backwards to make this work.”

In fact, Bischmann jokes that Littell knows more Harley staffers than she does. Littell’s down-to-earth good nature endeared her to staffers; her meticulous attention to detail kept them on the right road. Littell even worked with Harley’s records management department to set up an archiving system for anniversary paperwork. “She keeps more balls in the air than anyone I know,” says Bischmann, who has known Littell since junior high. “She has great people skills and never gets flustered.”

“Gaye has a good temperament for working with a wide variety of people – from the presidents of sponsoring companies to Harley employees,” says Hanrahan. His Milwaukee-based event marketing agency, Hanrahan & Associates, was the only outside company Harley hired to execute the anniversary. (Its ad agency Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis, handled some dealer and owners materials.) Harley doesn’t just set a budget and hire an event marketing firm because “they want you to really understand the culture,” says Littell, first drafted by Harley a mere nine months before its 90th party.

That’s likely to change for the 100th, which probably will be a year-round marketing event rather than a national ride and rally. Harley began planning in mi d-November, to give sponsors a full two years to leverage the 2003 event. But Harley will have to rethink its execution process. “It’s hard to have employees take on so much extra work as volunteers and not be event specialists,” Littell explains.

Littell is part team player, part entrepreneur. While attending Miami of Ohio University in ’82, she and her brother Guy formed Motherless Miami, delivering cakes and other treats to homesick freshmen, paid for by their parents. “That gave me the taste for it,” says Littell, oblivious to her pun. “We were busy little campers.” They sold the business after graduating, and Littell has formed a handful of marketing companies since then, including Littell + Elias, Milwaukee, which she and partner Jane Elias folded after Elias had a baby and Littell took an office in Harley headquarters in May ’96. Her event work began in ’86 at Milwaukee’s Summerfest, where she started as a receptionist and worked her way up to box of1/2ce manager of the Marcus Amphitheater for the city’s music festivals. She quit in ’92, and then Harley called. “It gave me a chance to do something different in a comfortable way” as a contractor rather than employee, Littell recalls.

So where does the Milwaukee native go when the Asheville sabbatical ends this month? To Reston, VA, to set up her own marketing consultancy and, yes, get working on Harley’s 100th.

“2003 is just not that far away,” Littell says with a laugh.

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