Melton International Tackle Careers and Employment in Anaheim, CA

Over the past 15 years, Melton International Tackle has grown from a school project to one of the world's most well respected retailers/catalogers in the high profile world of big game fishing tackle.

While attending the USC School of Business Tracy Melton participated in the Entrepreneurship program. As part of the program he was given the assignment to "start" a fictitious business. Combining his love for big game fishing with his interest in business, Tracy developed a range of jet head style trolling lures (that would eventually become know as Melton Jets) to build his project around. Eventually earning an "A" on the project, Tracy realized that there was an opportunity to pursue his dream of actually establishing a high-end big game fishing tackle business. With the input and guidance of Christopher Hall, one of the former managing partners of Harbord Tackle Supply in Sydney, Australia, Tracy put together a 12 page catalog featuring a limited variety of hard to find, custom trolling lures along with a small selection of high end tackle from manufacturers such as Shimano, Penn and Fin-Nor. This small publication was distributed to 10,000 anglers throughout the US with the initial orders, being filled by Tracy and shipped out of his parent's garage.

From these humble beginnings Melton International Tackle increased its volume of busy to a point where a 1994 move to a commercial warehouse in Los Alamitos, California was necessary. Keeping a personal touch, every member of the staff took orders and handled customer service inquires. In addition we were consumed with producing catalogs in 1994 (52 pgs.) and 1996 (88 pgs.) and increasing circulation to 100,000 internationally. The 1997 edition of the Melton International Tackle master catalog was 102 pages in length and was mailed to over 150,000 of the world's most serious big game anglers!

It was at this juncture that we began to expand our offerings and our horizons. The Melton Rods rod shop was opened in Feb. 1997, where we continue to build some of the very best fishing rods for a variety of angling situations. Featuring a range of rods from inshore light tackle to heavy tackle stand-up and tournament angling Melton Rods quickly became one of our staple products and today can be found onboard many of the world's top sportfishing boats. We also began our search for a proper headquarters. We had found that as our reputation grew, more and more customers would find us in our commercial warehouse and come knocking to get a look at our world-class product range. This was flattering, however this made it difficult to service our walk-in customers properly and continue building our mail-order business. In November of 1997, Melton International Tackle moved from a little warehouse to Anaheim, Ca. The location featured a 2,500 sq.ft. retail showroom, at the time, enabling us to adequately showcase the world's finest big game fishing tackle.

By early 2006, it was obvious that we had outgrown the building we occupied, seeing as business had quadrupled since we moved in eight years prior. It was sometime around mid 2006, that we started looking for the next Melton Tackle headquarters. After months of searching far and wide for a building that would accomodate our operation, we found our new location. Located only about a mile away, the new building fit the bill, allowing for ample space to effectively serve retail customers and mail-order customers alike. Mail-order operations occupied the building in September of 2007 and found the new building to be more than adequate to house our inventory, sales, rigger, customer service and warehouse teams.

Lastly, we have continued to offer our customers the very best in customer service and product selection, allowing us to become one of the world's most well respected and fastest growing big game fishing tackle catalog/retailers.