WILTON – There was a day when most running shoes were a ‘one-style fits-all’ endeavor.

Athletes laced them up and went for a run, regardless of the ill-fitting footwear and the subsequent discomfort. Long before specialized footwear became the norm in athletics, Bart Hersey thought there had to be a better way.

Today, the high-end shoes worn by runners and racewalkers are excellent, but Hersey recalls when that wasn’t the case.

“Back in the 80s, they weren’t very good,” said Hersey. “They were crap. (Manufacturers) were groping at doing things that they didn’t really know how to do. So making a better mousetrap back then wasn’t the most difficult thing in the world, if you had some basic knowledge, knew what you were trying to do, and you weren’t trying to hit a specific price.”

With knowledge of the shoemaking industry, he created Hersey Custom Shoe Company in his sheep barn in Wilton. It wasn’t solely to break new ground in athletic shoes, but to find a career that worked for him and his family.

“I had a good job with an exceptionally good company, but it just didn’t fit with what my wife and I wanted to do with our lives,” said Hersey, who was the director of manufacturing for both Bass Shoe Company and Hyde Athletic Industries. He later managed two factories in Maine for New Balance.

“I knew how to make shoes. So I thought I’d give that a whack.”

It proved not only to be a fruitful career move, but also a beneficial one for runners and racewalkers. Hersey’s specialized shoes quickly found a niche and developed a reputation that still draws athletes today. In 1984, Runner’s World magazine listed the Hersey Original as the third best shoe in its rankings. The next year, his DPS model was the No. 1 running shoe on the planet.

When the criteria for the rankings changed, and Hersey’s outfit was judged too small to qualify, his reputation still grew. Last week, Hersey was named the recipient of the United States Track and Field’s Mike Riban Award for 2007, recognizing his contribution to racewalking.

“It was an honor,” Hersey said. “I was surprised. I sold my business a year ago. I’m no longer making custom-made shoes. I had been doing it for a long time. I just did it and never thought it was that big of a deal.”

Tom Eastler, Maine’s racewalk chairman, called Hersey last week and gave him the news of the honor.

“I knew that guys I dealt with had a hard time getting proper footwear, but I didn’t realize it was a serious problem for the whole sport in the United States,” Hersey said. “That’s what Tom told me Sunday. That’s one of the reasons American athletes don’t perform as well as they should because they can’t get proper gear because it’s not a very popular sport.”

Nationally ranked walkers like Michelle Rohl, Kevin Eastler, Al Heppner and Curt Clausen have all worn his shoes in international competition. What made Hersey most grateful was learning that one of his clients nominated him.

“One of the guys we dealt with over the years, Curt Clausen, in the 10-year period before he semi-retired, he was the best 20K or 50K racewalker in the United States,” said Hersey. “I had dealt with him since the mid-’80s. Tom said he was the one that nominated me for the award. That’s the thing that really felt the best. He obviously wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t appreciate what I did.”

Hersey took the risk of building his own company with confidence and knowledge that he could build a better shoe. He just didn’t know how successful it would be. Back then, paying for high-end shoes wasn’t as commonplace.

“I was surprised at the response and was surprised that we could sell the numbers that we sold,” said Hersey. “We were as successful as we wanted to be. People have told me a lot of times that I’m a schmuck because I could have been a lot more successful if I’d been willing to do certain things. I wasn’t willing to get big. I wasn’t willing to have employees. I wasn’t willing to be away from home.”

Between him and his wife, Jan, it was truly a mom-and-pop operation, but the Herseys found a market for shoes with an individualized touch.

The selling point from the beginning is one the company still boasts today, which now operates out of Fitchburg, Mass.

“If you and your wife show up at the shop and both want the exact same pair of shoes, and she weighs 110 and you weigh 180 pounds, you don’t get the same shoes,” Hersey said. “Esthetically, it may be the same, but structurally, the choice of the material is dramatically different, especially if you have a different body type, different size, different stride, different mechanics, all that stuff.”

Hersey took time to pay attention to details. He was a casual runner himself, but had a working knowledge of shoe design that was adapted to suit his business.

“You needed to understand the motivation and what they were going through,” said Hersey. “More than anything, you needed to understand the mechanics of running and the biomechanics of the lower body. So you knew what to do if someone had a mechanical defect. You know what to do to compensate for it.”

One hitch was whether there would be a market for shoes in a higher price range. He didn’t want to make cheap shoes, but he wasn’t sure how much people would be willing to pay for quality.

“The biggest problem back then was if someone says ‘You’ve got to have a shoe that retails for $59.95,'” said Hersey. “Well, that limits what you can do. You can’t make a $75 shoe for $59.95. In my case, I wanted to make a better mousetrap, and if it came out to $150 that’s what it comes to.”

Hersey shoes now run more than $200. His products were so good that athletes paid to wear them. Unlike the major shoe companies, Hersey never paid anyone to wear his shoes.

“In two Olympics, two people had my shoes on,” Hersey said. “That was a huge kick to see people in the Olympics wearing shoes that had my name on them beside Nike and New Balance and those guys.”

Hersey sold his business last year and retired. He has a grandson with cerebral palsy, and he hopes to cultivate the trees on his land and make them marketable in the future to help with family expenses.

“I’m 61 years old and I’ve been doing this for 25 years,” said Hersey, whose last pair of shoes were made for his wife. “I needed a change from what I was doing. I had an opportunity to sell my business. I’ve got an opportunity to provide for my family in a unique way doing something I like to do. I really like playing in the woods.”