Founded in 1977, TS Designs began as a small, manual screen printing operation. It only took a few years for the company to become fully automated, printing shirts for big brands like Nike, Tommy, Polo, GAP, etc. However, after the 1993 implementation of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement), TS Designs watched as customer after customer transitioned accounts to Mexico in order to take advantage of lower costs.
Instead of calling it quits, like many of their colleagues in the manufacturing industry, CEO Tom Sineath (retired in 2015) and president Eric Henry turned to fellow business owner and longtime friend Sam Moore for a new direction. Sam introduced Tom and Eric to the triple-bottom-line business model focused on three equally important bottom lines: People, the Planet, and Profits.
Armed with their new business model and a healthy amount of crazy, Tom and Eric sought to align themselves with, and cater to, a then-fringe group: The Green Movement. It was a period of steady progression, exciting new developments and lessons learned as the company leaders continually pushed the boundaries on what was possible in printing technology and what it meant to source from local supply chains.
