SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) – As part of the ABC News challenge, ABC4 is featuring Utah companies keeping jobs and money in America. If we each spend just $64 this Holiday season on American made products, we can create 200,000 new jobs.
The Vest Guy and Stampin’ Up! are two companies which you might say have nothing in common. But there are two similarities: they both started with one idea and have exploded into a success and they are giving back to the communities who helped them succeed.
Rob Daugherty is the Vest Guy. His company started with just one idea.
Daugherty said, “I used to be in law enforcement and you always forget something and i made up a vest to haul all of my equipment."
It started with one vest twenty years ago and now he has thousands of styles coming out of his North Salt Lake facility.
Stampin’ Up! started 23 years ago with two sisters making and sharing rubber stamps. Now they are a multi million dollar company with 1800 unique products.
85,000 stamp sets a week come out of their manufacturing facility in Kanab. Staying in Kanab might make the most financial sense, but for the company’s CEO there is no place else she’d rather be.
Shelli Gardner said, “The community supported us, so I guess I'm a little torn and don't ever want to leave the community.”
And leave she will not. The business’ headquarters have moved to the Salt Lake Valley, but Gardner promises to never leave the southern Utah community.
While these two companies are so different the basics are the same: support the community and state that has helped you succeed.
Daugherty said, “Everything is being brought in and outsourced, so it’s critical we bring in as many things as possible.”
Gardner said, “Knowing that we produce our stamps here in Utah, its locally produced so you are helping the Utah families put food on the table".
