Oakley and Founder Jannard Bask in Stockholder Spotlight

Michael Jordan was a no-show, but reclusive Oakley Inc. founder Jim Jannard turned up Friday for his company’s first shareholders meeting, where he banned photography and shielded his eyes behind a pair of his company’s pricey sunglasses.

Camouflage was appropriate, given that the Irvine maker of sunglasses chose an aircraft hangar behind the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station’s Command Museum for its first meet-and-greet with shareholders since going public last August.

Wedged between the standard director voting and financial review was an ear-blasting rock video showing world-class athletes tromping the competition while wearing Oakley specs.

Outside the airplane hanger, Oakley employees in lab coats and tennis shoes fired projectiles at the company’s glasses to show the product’s strength and durability. Perspiring, armed Marines flanked the compound wearing camouflage patterned Oakley shades.

“We’re only wearing them for the day,” one soldier said. “As government employees, we’re not allowed to accept gifts.”

The crowd of more than 200 tattooed twentysomethings, retirees and silk-stocking types appeared to enjoy the laid-back atmosphere and absence of corporate ceremony.

Mike Parnell, Oakley’s chief executive, said the firm chose the military setting “because we couldn’t see ourselves in a hotel ballroom” and because the location speaks volumes about the fiercely competitive market for high-end sunglasses and sports eye wear, segments where competitors are gunning for hotshot Oakley.

“We’re in a war,” Parnell said over the thumping bass of rock music blaring from speakers near the dais. “It’s a friendly war, but it’s still war.”

Shareholders who had come to catch a glimpse of Jordan, Oakley’s most recognized board member, saw only a giant-sized banner of the basketball superstar sporting the company’s shades. Oakley brass said Jordan had a previous commitment with a charity event.

However, stockholders were treated to a rare public appearance by Jannard, the chairman and president who shuns cameras and publicity and is rarely seen in public without sunglasses.

Jannard wore a pair of his company’s prototype “M frames” throughout the meeting, removing them long enough to reveal the only real news of the day: His eyes are light brown.

Dressed in black jacket, a black T-shirt and jeans, Jannard was relaxed and showed a love of technical detail as he made such phrases as “definition and refraction” and “solaric elipsoid geometry” seem almost understandable.

But he couldn’t have been more clear in summarizing his company’s mission.

“We have a very simple business,” Jannard said. “We solve problems with inventions and then we wrap those inventions with art. That’s all there is to it.”

It’s a message that has appealed to shareholders, who snapped up nearly 10 million shares of the company’s stock in an initial public offering last August and an additional 5 million shares in a secondary issue this year. Oakley posted sales of $172.8 million last year and net income of $39.6 million.

Oakley stock shot up $3.125 a share Friday to close at $45.25 on the New York Stock Exchange. After the stock ended its first day of trading last August at $26.125 a share, the price rose to a high of $54.375 a share in late May, but had drifted downward since.

Asked by a shareholder to explain the recent fall, Link Newcomb, the company’s chief financial officer, offered a philosophical--and most uncorporate-like--explanation. “The market will be what it will be,” he said.

Likewise, when a shareholder suggested that Jannard and Parnell stop flying together on business to minimize the loss of top talent in case of a tragedy, Parnell reflected on the statement before replying: “That would be a bummer.”