Here's the scoop on how a reporting background informs the Stay brand

That’s me in the Red Sox cap in a farewell photo at the Sedalia (Mo.) Democrat in 1991, before I moved east and joined the York (Pa.) Daily Record.

I haven’t been a professional reporter since 1998, but I’ll never shake the journalist I used to be.

The reporting and writing skills that I learned in journalism school and across nine years as a newspaper reporter have been my faithful companions for more than 20 years of working in public relations.

But it may surprise you that they also inform much of my work on behalf of Stay Apparel Co.

In fact, Stay was a direct outgrowth of blogging for my PR business, specifically the occasional posts about some of my favorite American-made products. Ultimately, I didn’t want to be merely a spectator to the Made in the USA movement so I started Stay to create and sell my own goods.

Telling stories

Storytelling is elemental to the Stay brand, indeed to the Stay name. I publish blog posts twice per month, which allows me to share more of the Stay story across a range of categories, from branding and vendors to customer service and local history.

Those stories are archived at stayapparel.com, and they are the library that I often reference when I meet customers at our pop-up events.

I may explain how Helb’s brewery in York was a pioneer in the use of electric delivery vehicles, or how the maker of Herpak Franks in Harrisburg was known for its long-time support of 4-H, or that Garvin’s department store in Lancaster conducted transactions by sending payments to a central cashier by way of pneumatic tubes.

I didn’t think it was enough just to put the logos of old brands on shirts. I wanted to know more about those companies so that I could tell their stories as a tribute to the people who poured their heart and soul into building those brands. I learn as much as I can, with a vigor similar to chasing down a story for the newspaper.

I also develop blog posts about our original products, such as Ben’s Bolt Tee or Working Hard in Harrisburg Tee. Lately I’ve been digging into Hershey’s baseball history for a shirt that we're planning to introduce in June.

The researching and writing speak to the authenticity of Stay’s brand. We want customers to feel that they aren’t just buying ink on fabric. We’re want them to invest with their hearts and minds in addition to their dollars.

We’re not an easy brand in that regard because we ask customers to connect with those stories, and to care that we sell and celebrate American made.

Our new patch and cap

Which brings up another role that dogged reporting skills play in our brand. We constantly research American manufacturers and look for product sources that could be a good fit with us.

A great example is our new Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful ball caps, which will debut in late April. Fully custom hats, such as our Stay Trucker Hat and Stay Charcoal Twill Cap, are more costly to produce and come with higher minimum quantities and longer lead times. We love those caps, but we wanted another, more flexible, option.

Two years ago, for the first time, we used a stock cap for our Stay Unstructured Twill Hat. The hats were well made, but the manufacturer was in California and, presumably because it switched to making masks during the pandemic, no longer offered the colors we wanted.

So I continued searching and found Unionwear in Newark, N.J. Not only are Unionwear’s caps of equal or better quality than what the California vendor offered, they ship to us in just one day. We typically don’t need things that quickly, but the proximity reduces our shipping costs and our carbon footprint.

As for the Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Patch that will adorn the Unionwear hats, I researched domestic options extensively before settling on The Chicago Embroidery Co., which began in 1890.

The process from design to manufacture was smooth. And the resulting fully embroidered patch is a work of art that’s really going to pop on those hats.

The best part of being a reporter was the digging, the finding out, on behalf of a public that wanted and needed to know.

The same sense of curiosity that fueled me then energizes my efforts to find American manufacturers with which we can partner and bring new products to market.