Our Partners are the people who use and make our products.
We are nowhere without them!

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.

Our primary Partners are our Customers. Their feedback is invaluable. Not only do Customers provide us with some great ideas, but even more importantly, our customers are the emotional, 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 we want to avoid. We need all our Partners to put their prideful best into WeatherWool.  If our Customers are not fully satisfied (at least!) with a one of our products, we will always refund 100%.

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. The linked pages will have more information ... in some cases a LOT more information, and sometimes video, too

• 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 2023, 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. In 2023, the Bill Sims Wool and Mohair Research Laboratory at Texas A&M University tested some of our fiber for diameter and vegetable matter, but we still need length and strength testing from NZ
• Raw Wool Auction House / Financial Intermediary ... Mike Corn / Roswell Wool
• Original Woven Fabric Engineer ... Rob M. Stuart
• Raw Wool Storage ... Roswell Wool and Bollman and as of 2023, we are also storing wool in Gillette, Wyoming
• 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 some of our dyeing. Much of our dyeing is also performed by American Woolen Company in Connecticut
• Wool Spinning Mills ... American Woolen Company does the great majority of our spinning. But also Kentwool Yarn,  Burlington Fabrics, Crescent Woolen Mills.
• Mike Bonney (908-610-4513, MKBonney@Verizon.net) for Burlington yarns and Meridian Yarn Specialty Group.  We've been working with Mike for quite a few years.  Mike was with Hanora Mills before it was acquired by Burlington, and now Mike is also working with Meridian.  Mike has helped us acquire the yarn we use for Neck Gaiters and Watch Caps. Mike has huge knowledge of the wool industry and the people in it ... and a lot of stories!
• Wool Fabric Mill ... American Woolen Company
• Wool Weaving Mills ... MTL and American Woolen
• 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 (Olie's Images, NATco, Sil Thread), Mouton Furs
• Garment Design and Production Consultants/Managers ... The Factory8 and Better Team USA
• Aftermarket Modifications plus custom garment makers (from our Fabric) ...  Phenix Threads
• 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
• Quality Control Inspections:  Ashley Pachay (student at Fashion Institute of Technology);  Tufan Nadjafi (standup comic by night!);  Steven Martinez (graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology, and NOT to be confused with Steven Martinez who does our IT work)

And there are others, too, that are critical but not directly part of production:

• WeatherWool's Advisors (Your Advisors, too!)
• Creative Director: Advisor Trustin Timber (Cody Bokshowan) wore WeatherWool for five years before formally joining us as Media and Branding Consultant in late 2022. Cody helps us present ourselves in a way that better represents the quality of our products (Ralph wasn't getting that done!)  As of 2024, Cody is our Creative Director, and his influence is widespread and important!
• Photography:
• Our daughter Denali is a professional photographer, and has created some great imagery for us. But she is very busy with her own work now
• Cody (above) has created some fine still images and video that is seen in many places on this website. Cody's role within our company is growing
• In July of 2023, we began working with Elysian Pro Studios. Elysian specializes in product photography and we'll eventually have Elysian's images as the basis of all our product-stills.
• Webstore Platform: This website sits on the Shopify platform, the most widely-used ecommerce platform for small companies

• As of 2024, Lindsay King, proprietor of AddToCartCommerce.com, is WeatherWool’s webmaster

• Rachael Kranick drawings clarify our size charts (Hooded Jacket for example)

• Chris Karam does specialty art for us.  KaramHandmade@gmail.com, KaramHandmade.com ... Chris created the drawings of yarn that appear on our page dedicated to spinning
• Accountant ... Rick Hodgman of New Jersey
• Information Technology Support by Steven Martinez (shy guy, typical IT!)
• Carriers:
• USPS ... Hooray for Bernie!
• UPS ... Troy is fantastic
• FedEx
• DHL ... really good at international services!
• BBI Logistics for bulk transport
• We have used CarrierLynx for single bales of fiber. And I do like their name!
• 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
• Music!!  Kind of shocking to me, but, in our videos we use music licensed from Epidemic Sound
• Reports!  One fact of business is that managers love reports.  And now I'm a manager.  Better Reports works in tandem with our Shopify store to enable creation of the reports I need.  Savvy users can do their own reports.  Lazy and/or inept users can ask (nicely!) someone like Claudia!
• Social Media Reddit:  Paul Blanos and Peter Wiltse have volunteered their service as Admins of the Reddit WeatherWool page.  I didn't know there was one until Paul wrote me
• Social Media Facebook WeatherWool Group:  This is a discussion group separate from our WeatherWool page.  Peter Wiltse is also moderator of this Group

There are still others, another step removed from us, but important nevertheless:

• SheepUSA, aka American Sheep Industry Association. ASI has been working on behalf of the American Sheep Industry since about 1865. All our Ranchers are ASI members, and we interface directly with ASI at times. Advisor Mike Corn is a past president
• Wyoming Wool Initiative ... A group from the University of Wyoming working to promote Wyoming wool and US processing. We are just getting to know them in 2023. Their goals match ours. It was through Sheep Industry News (see page 16), published by SheepUSA, that I became aware of WWI.
• IWTO ... International Wool Trade Organization. The name is indicative. They produce a lot of information about wool and this website cites them. I did inquire as to whether it was appropriate for WeatherWool to join, but maybe they didn't receive. It seems geared to the largest wool players
• Woolmark ... The Australian Wool Growers Trade Association. They produce some great information and are cited here frequently
• National Livestock Producers Association ... We are not livestock producers, of course (at least not yet), but NLPA supports those upon whom we rely. And there is a possibility that WeatherWool will work directly with NLPA before long.

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.

We don't do paid advertising, and so we are particularly grateful to those companies that help us present ourselves to the world but do not request any sort of payment. These companies are definitely a big help to us: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Rumble.

Similarly, people wearing our clothing appear regularly on History Channel's Mountain Men. At least five Contestants on History Channel's Alone Survival Competition have selected WeatherWool. We have been on other TV Shows as well. We've never paid for any of this very valuable publicity. People chose WeatherWool for its own sake.

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!!

THANK YOU --- Ralph

 

19 March 2025 --- Ralph