11/1/2007

By Ken Shulman

Rob Zeytoonian ’95 has found a unique way to turn his passion for baseball into a career.

The 34-year-old former Suffolk University infielder is the owner of the Zorian Bat Company. He started the company in 2003 after playing semi-professional ball and coaching for several years, during which time he returned to his alma mater to earn a masters degree in higher education administration.

As a one-man outfit, Zorian must compete with sporting goods heavyweights like Rawlings, Louisville Slugger, and Hillerich and Bradsby, the official supplier for Major League Baseball. Most minor league teams have an official supplier as well. Zeytoonian has to give players a reason to buy a Zorian bat when they can get one for free. He goes to spring training in Florida, to high school tournaments, to Little League games and semi-pro contests, and attends conventions. To some extent, he’s driven by competition. For Zeytoonian, however, baseball is more than a business—it’s a part of his history.

Zeytoonian has had a lifelong love affair with baseball since he was six years old, playing on the sandlots of his native Arlington, Massachusetts. He went on to high-school stardom in Weatherford, Oklahoma, followed by four years of varsity ball at Suffolk. He wasn’t the most gifted athlete, but he was undeniably determined.

After coaching in Ohio, Zeytoonian returned to Massachusetts in 2001 after his brother became ill, and squeezed out one final season on the diamond in 2002. The following year, he founded Zorian. “I knew I would be an entrepreneur,” he says. “I knew it would be in baseball. And I knew I wanted it to be mine– that no one would care about it the way I could care about it.”

The fledgling businessman had everything to learn, about choosing maple and ash, about turning them into bats, and especially about running a company. But working 12- and 14-hour days have paid off, as a dozen players in The Show now use his bat (although he cannot divulge their names due to licensing obligations).

Production has risen from 1,000 bats in his first year of 2004 to more than 5,000 two years later, and he had a goal of reaching the 10,000 sales mark this past season.

Zeytoonian doesn’t have a detailed business plan. He runs his company the way he played ball—hard, at full throttle, with long drives, seemingly endless workdays, and whatever else it takes to stay in business.

The full version of this article ran in the Fall 2007 issue of Suffolk Alumni Magazine.