The shop is easy to show. The deeper question people tend to ask is… how did I get here — launching a brand out of a tiny home studio in Asheville? The honest answer is that I found joy in softgoods design, through a roundabout series of unexpected outcomes. So, here's how the ride here actually went.
Where did this all start?
I graduated from Appalachian State in 2011 with a degree in industrial design, and I was already working for a medical device startup by then. Heck, I almost dropped out of college because by the time I was halfway through senior year, I was already pretty busy working with suppliers in Taiwan, engineers from Boston, and something like nine different PhD scientists on producing the next generation of optical drug delivery, so I was kind of already doing the professional work — before even graduating.
So how does someone go from medical devices to sewing?
The startup sold, and not long after I accepted an offer to teach industrial design courses back at App State, starting that fall. To fill the gap I decided to buy a one-way ticket to California for my granddad's 80th birthday, with the intent of buying a motorcycle that I could ride cross-country to get it home, while seeing friends in different places along the way — Honestly, I don't think I had ever even ridden a motorcycle for longer than half an hour, but hey, it had to be more comfortable than racing road bikes, and seemed like the right way to spend a summer. About a month and a half into the trip, I was somewhere in Utah or Arizona, I think… I got a call from Appalachian State University and they told me they'd pulled the position I was being hired for. Woof. So there I was, with more than 2,000 miles of riding left on my serpentine route home — with plenty of time to think about what's next now that there was no more teaching job for me to roll back to. All I really knew was that in my heart, I wasn't ready to move on from Boone and that something would turn up.
How'd you land at a climbing company?
At the time, I had some buddies working for an OG rock climbing company, Misty Mountain Threadworks. They were all headed up to the New River Gorge for the Craggin' Classic and talked me into joining. So, not even a week after rolling back into Boone from almost three months on the open road, I pointed the bike north to go camp and climb with the Misty crew. A few days into the trip, I was climbing with Grimbo (one of the owners of Misty at the time) and he let me know they were looking for someone to help out doing QC with the other owner, "Goose" Kearse — inspecting, packaging, and shipping finished goods. Part of this job title also meant that I would learn about testing standards and coordinate with testing labs in Europe so Misty could earn UIAA and CE PPE certifications on a number of their harnesses. One of the cool things about Misty was that they had all the equipment on hand so that we could set up and test the exact same scenarios as in the official labs in Europe, so we could do destructive testing on stitch patterns and assemblies using the equipment Misty had set up in-house.
What did you actually learn there?
Rock climbing, and climbers in particular, is pretty hard on gear — so I learned a lot about material characteristics; how various fibers perform under static and dynamic loads, how different materials react to abrasion, UV rays, heat cycles and a lifetime spent outdoors… Basically I learned how to make things strong. To boot — I'd always been interested in how things are produced, so I started tinkering with basic sewing on the job, which led to more experimenting with 3D patterning and softgoods design, using some of the tools I had learned in school, and on the medical device job.
I think Goose appreciated my enthusiasm and ID background so he started giving me opportunities to work on new products along with reworking and updating their existing line. My favorite projects were probably a set of functional samples for a pediatric spinal rehabilitation harness, and a K9 harness for special forces guys who jump out of helicopters with their dogs. These kinds of projects had a very specific set of design requirements for real world use — exactly the kind of problems I love to solve for.
Looking back, does the journey make sense now?
It does. It's funny because I had an idea of what I was looking for, but didn't really know what it would look like in reality — Turns out it was right in front of me the whole time. I just had to take a few detours before it really came into my field of view.