a market previously dominated by the major rubber manufacturers’ bulkier winter boots. Between 1945 and 1954, the firm’s prototypes earn six patents and registered designs. Ever the showman, company president Marx promotes his “totes” at any sales opportunity. In 1949, reportedly, the company makes 24,000 pairs per week and cannot fulfill all its orders. 1950s In 1950, So-Lo Works Incorporated vice-president Fred R. Heckman dies and the firm’s name changes to So-Lo Marx Rubber Co. of Loveland, Ohio. Later the same year, the company invites parents to submit snapshots of their children putting on their "totes" for use in national advertising. During the 1950s, the "totes" product family expands. The "world’s lightest" Hip-"totes" thigh-length fishing waders appear in 1955, while 1956 sees the introduction of Trouser-"totes", tough lightweight leggings for deer hunters. The firm markets the "world’s finest" Skooba-"totes" dry suits a year after a high-school student and a sporting-goods sales clerk trial the prototypes in the nearby Little Miami River early in 1957. Divers and water skiers alike welcome these low-cost full-length seamless exposure suits, which enable them to operate all year round. 1960s In the early 1960s, Skooba-“totes” dry suits not only prove popular across the USA with divers, water skiers and now cavers, but also find favor with their counterparts in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France and the United Kingdom. In November 1961, Bradford E. Phillips, a Western Felt Works sales representative for industrial rubber and textiles, acquires 100% of So-Lo Marx’s outstanding capital stock. He continues as the sole stockholder until June 1994. Marx remains on the board until he retires to Sarasota, Florida, where he passes away, aged 70, in December 1967. 1 April 1965 sees So-Lo Marx Rubber Co. change by charter amendment to "Totes Incorporated". Company president Brad Phillips’s choice of name confirms his intention to refocus on the original lucrative "Totes" product of the late 1940s and early 1950s: lightweight rubber footwear that packs up into a small pouch when not in use. Other So-Lo Marx product lines — diving suits, rubber cement, resoling material, meat tenderizer, bicycle seats, instant gravy, plaster statuette molds — face imminent cancellation. 1970s In 1970, Phillips adds a collapsible umbrella to the Totes range of wet-weather gear, whose selling point is the ability to fold out of sight when no longer required. Having failed twice to devise his own working prototype, he discovers that L.P. Henryson