For People Who Need Rugged Work Shoes, There's Lehigh Valley Safety Shoe

People who work in industries moving heavy objects around need shoes with metatarsal guards on top to protect the instep. Chemical workers need non-skid shoes, and food service workers need shoes that dissipate water on wet floors and prevent falls. Police officers and nurses who walk a lot need Oxford-type shoes with good support.

And for many workers, there’s only one place to buy those special shoes: , a specialty shoe store in Salisbury Township that’s been in business at 1105 E. Susquehanna St. since 1978.

Most of the brands on display there are familiar, if the shoes are not: Timberland, Skechers, Doc Martens, Dickies and dozens more. Converse, known for classic lace up and high-top sneakers, is also a big manufacturer of steel-tipped boots, military boots and other heavy-duty footwear, including eight styles made especially for postal workers. Timberland has dozens of styles of rugged protective boots, hikers and Oxfords that go to work. Even Florsheim has a heat-resistant internal metatarsal guard steel-toe boot.

Today, Lehigh Valley Safety Shoes sells retail and mail order, but most sales are made on “shoemobiles,” special trucks outfitted as mobile shoe stores. The trucks travel all over eastern Pennsylvania and beyond, fitting workers on the job with boots and shoes. Inside the trucks are racks of shoes, fitting areas with chairs, and office equipment for sales transactions.

“Sixty-five percent of our business is taking our mobile units to employees,” says Jim Codrea, the company’s controller. His brother, Jeff Codrea, is president of the company, and their sister, Lynn Codrea, is account executive.

Lehigh Valley Safety Shoe opened a second store in New Castle, Del. in 1984, and has a total of 20 trucks with routes stretching from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. (its maintenance department is a customer), to companies on Long Island, or petrochemical plants in Delaware.

“Our salesmen really know the needs of our customers,” Jim Codrea said.

The company’s Web site sales (www.safetyshoes.com) and mail order from the company’s catalog of 500 styles make up a quarter of its sales, and the remaining 10 percent is walk-in.

Over the years, Lehigh Valley Safety Shoe sales have reflected the area’s change from heavy industry to lighter manufacturing. “Twenty years ago, Bethlehem Steel was the area’s biggest employer,” says Jim Codrea. Today, the largest employers are the hospitals or food industries.

The local history of shoes sold by Lehigh Valley Safety Shoe is older than the company (and, thanks to businesses with similar names, a little confusing). Prior to 1978, the store at 1105 E. Susquehanna sold only Lehigh Safety Shoes, a brand popular for steel-toed boots made by a Lehigh Valley company that began as the Lehigh Rubber and Leather Co. Experiencing financial difficulties in the Depression, Lehigh Safety Shoe was sold in the 1930s to Endicott Johnson, the shoe manufacturer based in the Binghamton area of New York.

Lehigh VALLEY Safety Shoes began when Jeff Codrea, then an Endicott Johnson employee working at the Lehigh Safety Shoe outlet decided to buy the business from his employer.  The building was purchased the following year.

The Codreas added additional brands to their inventory in the 1980s, but today no longer sell Lehigh Safety Shoes. The brand still exists, however, and is now owned by Rocky Brands, Nelsonville, Ohio.