Ocean Pacific Measures Itself for Alterations : Retailing: New CEO John Warner will build toward success by using the company’s major strength--near-universal name recognition. He hopes to project good image to new customers.

John Warner, the newly selected chief executive officer at Ocean Pacific Apparel Corp., knows that the surf-wear company’s future will be determined by how well it blends the new and the old.

“We have an opportunity to refocus a company . . . that has an overwhelmingly positive image among consumers,” said Warner, 43. “But we have to get everyone in the organization heading in the same direction . . . concentrating on putting out the best product in the marketplace.”

That means retaining the old--Ocean Pacific’s strong name recognition--and developing an updated line of active wear that appeals to older, more discriminating consumers than the youthful customers that Ocean Pacific historically has served.

That’s a tall order for Ocean Pacific Apparel, the name of the new company that on April 20 acquired the assets of Ocean Pacific Sunwear Ltd., the now-bankrupt company that helped pioneer the surf-wear industry 21 years ago. Ocean Pacific Apparel is owned by Berkeley Capital Corp., a privately held investment firm in San Francisco.

Ocean Pacific’s 30 employees transferred to the new company, which operates out of the former company’s Irvine offices.

While Ocean Pacific is still one of the clothing industry’s best-known brands, Ocean Pacific Sunwear’s highly publicized financial woes have confused consumers and retailers. Warner, a veteran of the surf- and active-wear industry, has a good chance of rebuilding the brand’s appeal, observers said.

“If they can move very quickly and reacquaint themselves with consumers, then it’s not impossible” for Ocean Pacific to regain dominant market share, said former surf-wear industry executive Shaheen Sadeghi. “They’ll need product that’s innovative and offers value . . . but there’s definitely room for them.”

Warner, most recently chief executive officer of Raisins, a women’s swimwear manufacturer in San Juan Capistrano, previously served as chairman of Costa Mesa-based Quiksilver, another leading surf-wear manufacturer, from 1988 to 1991.

Warner joined Ocean Pacific Tuesday “primarily because of the challenge of (rebuilding) what was formerly one of the powerhouses in the whole beach-wear industry. . . . I’m coming in at what, hopefully, is the low point and have an opportunity to refocus the company.”

Ocean Pacific’s immediate challenge is designing and implementing the spring 1994 product line that would be expected to generate more than half of the company’s 1994 sales.

Ocean Pacific Apparel doesn’t manufacture clothing or accessories. Rather, the company licenses the Ocean Pacific name and its product designs to manufacturers of young men’s, boys’, girls’, juniors’ and children’s sportswear.

Ocean Pacific hopes to grow quickly by designing fashions that are appealing to older consumers who have worn the Op label during the past two decades. “We’ll be relying less upon the teen market and more on what I call the post-college market, which is a little more mature in its tastes,” Warner said.

That strategy makes sense, according to Sadeghi, a former Quiksilver executive who is now a retail industry consultant. “Op shouldn’t be trying to hit the youngest, hippest guy on the beach. It would be a mistake for them to focus on that crowd when they have such tremendous name recognition (among older consumers).”

And, Ocean Pacific’s fashions won’t stray very far from the beach, according to Warner.

During the past three years, the now-bankrupt Ocean Pacific Sunwear company incorporated darker fashions more akin to street wear than beachwear. “We’ll offer easy-to-wear, comfortable clothing that’s colorful, not dark, not street wear, not East L.A., not hip-hop,” Warner said.

“Part of our job will be to take whatever we see as the latest fashion trends, colors, fashions and fabrics and interpret it for our customers . . . who tend to be a little more conservative,” Warner said. “We’re not going to be too far out there on the (fashion) edge.”