This is Hendra.  We were lucky to find him. And we are proud of the quality work we are able to produce because of him. 

Finding good sewers in Seattle are like finding a needle in a haystack. Hendra is from Jakarta, Indonesia. He came to the US in 1979 to study Mechanical Engineering. His first job out of school was at Filson, a 100+ yr old Seattle Landmark, making "American heritage outerwear". He was their production manager until he was laid off, as they sent a bulk of production overseas. 

Now he makes uniforms for someone else. As a side hustle, he takes on contracts for many PNW small batch designer/manufacturers. He cuts on the table in his garage, and farms out the stitching to up to 25 local home sewers, all of whom have worked at Filson. It's a network. And it's largely hidden. Most speak other languages and none speak much English. They are all first generation immigrants, and support their families with their work. Hendra supplies and maintains industrial machines for them and drops off and picks up cut pieces for them to finish. This is the dream team!

Here is a stack of cutting: 

During the Mask Mission in 2020, we hired up to 25 stitchers per day who cranked out up to 4,000 masks per day. My own "Dream Team" (my boys) packed and shipped all those to you!  The sewers were happy to have the work as their contracts suddenly disappeared, and we pumped $488,000 into the local economy. Yay team!