Partner Relations
On the website Landing Page are a few books about woolcrafting given to us by Rob Stuart, Senior Fabric Engineer, who has been with us since our early days. Over the thousands of years people have been wearing and working with wool, an enormous body of knowledge has developed. The Partners listed on this page all contribute to us indispensable expertise.
All the companies and individuals that help us with goods or services are our Partners, and we're happy to acknowledge them.
But first, we must acknowledge our Customers. Not only do they provide us with some great ideas, but even more importantly, our customers are the emotional and inspirational (and financial!) fuel without which WeatherWool would not exist.
We believe a primary key to working with our Partners is to describe to them our objectives, and let them tell us how to proceed.
WeatherWool is a small company aiming to grow. Some of our Partners are already BIG companies with BIG clients and VERY LARGE operations ... which means that WeatherWool may not yet justify the time and effort they have devoted to us. We are grateful and fortunate that all our Partners appreciate what we are doing and are willing to extend themselves for us in ways that sometimes do not really seem to make typical business sense. --- THANKS to all our Partners! --- Ralph, Debby, Alex, Denali, Zack
Our garments represent the expertise, dedication, cooperation and good will of a great many people and companies, collectively referred to here as PARTNERS.
All our Partners understand WeatherWool's basic concepts/goals:
- Hardcore Luxury®
- The best products and best customer service we can figure out
- 100% American in materials and manufacture
- Constant innovation, testing and improvement
- Teamwork
- If our customers do not advocate for WeatherWool, we have failed
Underlying these basic product concepts is our general philosophy:
Everyone has to be happy. If our Partners are not happy with us, we won't get their best. Everyone needs to try to minimize costs, but not at the sacrifice of quality. Every Partner can be squeezed, but that inevitably creates feelings and problems that we want to avoid. We need all our Partners to put their prideful best into WeatherWool.
Many of our Partners are shown as Advisors on this website, and we will be adding more information about more of our Partners. We view all our Partners as Advisors because all are career professionals that bring knowledge and experience in their specialties. Their collective knowledge is enormous, and it's very true that no single person knows more than a fraction of it. (I, Pencil is a great essay about how nobody knows how to make a pencil.)
Here is a list (and no doubt it will grow) of the areas in which our Partners help us make WeatherWool. The list is in the rough order of involvement in our production processes.
- Original Fiber Advisor/Consultant Bob Padula
- Ranchers
- Raw (Greasy) Wool Consultants ... Bob Padula and Mike Corn
- Raw Wool Sampling (for testing prior to purchase) ... Mike Corn / Roswell Wool and Ladd Hughes / Bollman
- Wool Testing Labs ... as of April 2022, the USA does not have a testing facility that performs all the tests we need. So we, "our Ranchers", plus many others in USA and worldwide rely on the analytical services of the New Zealand Wool Testing Authority.
- Raw Wool Auction House / Financial Intermediary ... Mike Corn / Roswell Wool
- Original Woven Fabric Engineer ... Rob M. Stuart
- Raw Wool Storage ... Roswell Wool and Bollman
- Wool Scouring (Cleaning) by Bollman and Chargeurs
- Wool Dye House ... First, we worked with Woolrich, but they shuttered US Operations. Then it was G.J. Littlewood & Son of Philadelphia, but their facility was destroyed by Hurricane Ida Floods. Presently, Tintoria Piana in Georgia does our dyeing. And we hope American Woolen Company in Connecticut will soon be dyeing for us.
- Wool Spinning Mills ... American Woolen Company does the great majority of our spinning. But also Kentwool Yarn, Burlington Fabrics, Crescent Woolen Mills
- Wool Fabric Mill ... American Woolen Company
- Wool Weaving Mill ... MTL
- Wool Knitting Mills ... Tailored Industry and Fleck Knitwear
- Woven Wool Finishing Mill ... American Woolen Company
- Suppliers of Thread, Buttons, Zippers, Zipper Pulls, Cords, Cord Locks, Labels, Mouton Furs
- Garment Design and Production Consultants/Managers ... The Factory8 and Better Team USA
- Aftermarket Modifications plus custom garment makers (from our Fabric) ... Madrona Wear
- Tailors/Sewing Professionals ... The Factory8, Better Team USA ... besides people who do the actual sewing, this also includes teams/companies that make samples, make patterns, grade sizes, mark the templates that will guide the cutters, the cutting team and finally the sewing professionals
And there are others, too, that are critical but not directly part of production:
- WeatherWool's Advisors (Your Advisors, too!)
- Media: Advisor Trustin Timber wore WeatherWool for five years before taking on the role of Media and Branding Consultant in late 2022. Trustin will help us present ourselves in a way that better represents the quality of our products
- Accountant
- Information Technology Support by Steven Martinez
- Carriers:
- USPS ... Hooray for Bernie!
- UPS ... Troy is fantastic
- FedEx
- DHL ... really good at international services!
- BBI Logistics for bulk transport
- Intellectual Property ... Polson Intellectual Property Law
- Models (both for "fit" and for photo shoots) ... Fazon Gray, Fisher Neal and Chase Burnett are all WeatherWool Advisors. Hampus Svard.
- Our Phone Number(!!) ... Our phone number, 831-July 4th-1776 is a big deal to me, and we obtained it via the services of NumberBarn.com
- Mouton Pelts ... We incorporate Mouton Pelts into a few pieces. We purchase Mouton from Nugget International, of Texas. Colin Wheeler (Colin@NuggetInternational) is our contact
We know almost all of our major Partners fairly well ... some of them very very well, since 2010. We will continue to strengthen the relationships between and among all our Partners and Advisors.
Incidentally, a main reason for this page, and a somewhat unusual aspect of our philosophy, is to help our Advisors/Partners interact, and thereby better understand each other's needs and capabilities.
This page will grow with names of more Partners and links to further reading on this website as well as the Partners' own websites.
If you think your company can help us improve, please get in touch!! ... But please note ... my perspective is that you can't help us until you have experience actually wearing WeatherWool.
THANK YOU --- Ralph
30 January 2023 --- Ralph