FLORENCE – Signs of the times indeed. If the garment workers who toiled in the mills around The Shoals could see how their their legacy has been transfigured, they would certainly say that it was a miraculous happening.
Wednesday, Performance Scrubs held a grand opening party at its spanking new facility in the Florence Industrial Park. As the Quad-Cities Daily reported last June, the company has melded garment manufacturing with computerized systems to create a new way of making clothing. And Wednesday, J. Kirby Best and his team showed off their new facility to Shoals business leaders.
Performance Scrubs is changing the way professionals who work in the medical industry can purchase their clothes for work. If you have even looked at those folks, it’s apparent that they like to customize their uniforms. Colors, pocket designs, mix and match… And to come up with a signature style, nurses and technicians spend lots of time to get just the right look and feel. Mr. Smart came up with a better idea.
Smart told the gathering that he wanted to be able to manufacture clothing that suits the particular styles our customers want. And he wanted to come up with a way to bring back clothing manufacturing to America.
Best, an entrepreneur with business interests in Canada and the United States, started the company in Nashville in 2000. He says that he has been working on a way to transform garment manufacturing to make it feasible to bring the industry back to America. A little over 2 years ago, Giles McDaniel, of the Shoals Entrepreneurial Center, helped get the local ball rolling with a group of investors and consultants who are part of an “Angel Network” that helps launch promising new businesses by helping with seed capital and consultation. Before long Forrest Wright, of the Shoals Economic Development Agency was involved. The ball started rolling.
Here is what Performance Scrubs says about their manufacturing process:
· The company was founded out of cancer.
· Original company name was DryDreamsSleepwear.com.
· In 2002, Performance worked with a leading US mill to provide moisture
wicking material to develop the first product line.
· The first product line was women’s sleepwear.
· In 2009, the company changed its name to
PerformanceSleepwear.com.
· In 2009, Performance was introduced to Cullman Regional Center to
provide medical uniforms or scrubs, hence PerformanceScrubs.com was
born.
· In 2013, additional investors came aboard to assist in building the RBT
System and manufacturing processes.
· In 2013, Performance began the process of building the infrastructure
of our new on-demand manufacturing process.
· In 2014, Performance moved from Cullman, AL to Florence, AL.
· In 2014, Performance installed the newly developed RBT on-demand
manufacturing process in the new Florence facility.
The Quad-Cities Daily was on hand to record the festivities in EVENT PHOTOS and we present them here.
