No offshore production for these leatherheads
Joan Gunin, Leather editor -- Furniture Today, March 16, 2003
Just when you think every leatherhead is hightailing it to Shanghai, McKinley Leather is paddling hard against the offshore tide — even lighting flares — to let us know it's determined to cling to the U.S. shoreline.
This market, as McKinley Leather moves to 310 Hamilton Court, near manufacturers similarly committed to domestic production, it also unfurls a new logo and hang tag, "Crafted by Hands of America: Keep America Working," designed to hammer its message home to retailers and consumers.
"We don't want to let furniture go overseas," says Lori Sadowski of McKinley. "The key for us as a domestic producer is to get product in front of retailers and consumers right now."
Founded on "quick response and customer service," Sadowski says, "This is not a quick-ship program. This is a way of life."
In 1989, having each lost jobs in the furniture industry to takeovers, father Jim Mitchell and daughter Sadowski launched McKinley Leather, with Jim as president and Lori as chief operating officer. The company derived its name from Jim's father, McKinley Mitchell.
Beginning with five employees (counting father and daughter) in an 18,000-square-foot leased building, McKinley Leather by 1992 had its own 40,000-square-foot plant in Claremont, N.C., with a roster of 35 — or more, as needed — serving high-end independent leather specialty stores nationwide, shipping in three weeks.
All Americans have a vested interest in domestic manufacturing and in keeping America working, Sadowski says. If not, where will the workers go? There aren't enough service jobs to go around, she argues.
"Here in America, we have control (of our products)," she says. "We can fix it. We can take the high road and remain in charge of quality and shipments. We want to know what we can put into it, not what we can take out."
Sadowski explored foreign options but felt her products would be compromised and did not pursue it. She buys hides from around the world through local distributors but scoffs at any hint of cut-and-sew. It's all made in house.
Furniture, textiles and fiber optics are the things that Claremont/Catawba County is known for producing. They're also the things hardest hit by offshore competition.
McKinley and its father-and-daughter leaders are undaunted.
"Our nation already has witnessed a major swing from agricultural to industrial production. Where are we going to go next? We'd better start planning, or else try to preserve our industrial base," Sadowski says. "But it takes everyone together, not just a few people."
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