How a Revolutionary Running Shoe Started in a Toaster Oven

Golden Harper ran his first marathon at 10 years old, about the same age he started helping out around his family’s running store in Orem, Utah, just south of Salt Lake City.

A decade later, the BYU-Hawaii exercise science major saw a hole in the running shoe market for zero-drop sneakers, which cushion the toe and the heel at the same level to mimic the biomechanics of walking barefoot.

But how did the cofounder of Altra get from that mid-2000s epiphany to today, leading an innovative company with revenues topping $50 million? That tale involves a healthy dose of curiosity, the dream of helping people run pain-free and, yes, even a toaster oven.

Here, Harper outlines the brand’s early history in his own words … and simultaneously pulls back the curtain on an industry with some (improperly soled) skeletons in its closet.

Lose your illusion

“I started at the running store when I was nine, and by the time I went to college, I felt like everything we provided to people wasn’t necessarily working as well as it could. And so I wanted to research foot problems and running injuries and all that stuff.

By the time I got done with college, I was like, ‘I’ve been lying to people my whole life. All the things I’ve been telling people about shoes that have been told to me by the shoe companies are scientific lies.’