Noah Currier is a busy man. He runs the Oscar Mike and the Oscar Mike Foundation (Oscar Mike means “on-the-move”)– while maintaining a busy travel schedule as an active athlete. Oscar Mike is a for-profit company that makes and sells t-shirts, hats, and hoodies with a side of patriotic spirit. Through the Oscar Mike Foundation, Noah and his team raise money for injured veterans to participate in adventure sports.
Not only is Noah’s vision inspiring, but his business model has proved successful over the last six years with revenues doubling each year. The company now has 10 full-time employees and the foundation supports and participants in dozens of events each year.
There’s just one big issue.
Noah is dead-set on buying only American-made materials. And that commitment makes sense, given his company and foundation’s mission. But what might sound straightforward in a planning meeting has proven to be his greatest entrepreneurial challenge to date. There are so few US garment producers, in fact, that he believes he knows all of them by name. While he and his team have been developing relationships with these companies, he’d like to see more.
So, with everything else he’s working on, he’s also determined to reignite some energy in the US apparel market. When we spoke recently, Noah told me that 97 percent of the clothing we wear in the US is imported. I shouldn’t have been shocked by this number — given that I couldn’t find a single US label on any of my own clothing in my suitcase. This decline in US clothing manufacturers has been relatively recent, with trade quotas gradually being phased out through the 1990s and 2000s.
Today, there are only a handful of clothing manufacturers in the US. This is a problem not just because it drives up t-shirt prices for companies like Oscar Mike, but also because of the lack of diversity of products available. For example, Noah would like to branch into high-performance materials and, unfortunately, there aren’t many US companies producing those right now. His business is limited because the suppliers are limited.
What can you do to help bolster the American garment industry?
Look for the American-made label the next time you shop. While a closet full of 100 percent American-made clothing might not be realistic, just increasing the proportion to 5 or 10 percent would drive up demand.
There are many things I found inspiring about Noah and his experience. I admire his guts to start two organizations at once with virtually no experience in either field. I find his commitment to helping others honorable. And I’m impressed with his bigger picture view on the apparel industry.
With so much shared interest in reviving American manufacturing jobs, apparel is one industry that’s very much within within our capacity to change as individuals. We each buy dozens of items of clothing — and t-shirts specifically — each year.
Why not opt for one or more of those to be made in the US?
The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.