MARWAYNE, Alta. — Debra George shot up in bed and shook her husband awake. She had an amazing idea for a business — making coveralls.
Marvin just looked at her and said: “You don’t even know how to sew,” and went back to sleep.
But Debra knew she was on to a good thing. She was tired of washing her husband’s dirty, slimy coveralls every time he helped a cow calve.
The next morning she phoned across Canada, securing a line of lightweight, waterproof material. After finding a local woman able to design a pattern they went to work.
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From the beginning, in 1985, Debra knew she wasn’t going to sink a lot of money into the company they named Splasher. If it worked, that was great. If it was a flop they had not lost a lot of money.
“This was something that had to go on its own,” she said.
They hoped to sell 20 coveralls in the first year; in the first three months they sold almost 400. This year they plan to sell 3,000 garments.
Demand was overwhelming
Things have improved from the first few hectic months when they cut the material on the dining room floor. Orders were pouring in faster than they could handle.
“We were swamped, busy and disorganized,” she said. They still had a farm to run and Debra commuted 40 kilometres to Lloydminster to work as an X-ray technician.
Each night after they put their two children, Garth, 12, and Blaine, 8, to bed they would head down to their basement, pick up their sewing shears and cut material until 3 a.m.
“We were so primitive,” she said.
They don’t have much more sophisticated equipment eight years later, but they’re better organized.
Marvin and Debra still hand-cut the material in their basement eight layers at a time. The pieces are then bundled into bags and given to local women to sew in their homes.
A cottage industry has sprouted from their business. Fifteen local farm women are hired to sew the coveralls in their own homes. When the business began the Georges experimented with an assembly line of sewing machines in their basement. It didn’t work. They wanted the women to sew in their own environment, not be forced to take children to a day care.
“The farm ladies stay in their own environment where they aren’t monitored,” said Debra.
One woman recently sewed 10 coveralls on the weekend. The women are paid for each item sewed. Because the sewing is subcontracted Debra doesn’t have to worry about income tax or Canada Pension Plan deductions and more bookwork.
A sewing machine with forward and reverse is the only equipment the sewers need. The Georges supply the needles and thread as well as delivering the pieces and picking up the finished product.
The pattern was designed with as few seams as possible to eliminate sewing and seepage from the seams when the coveralls are wiped off. A velcro strip covers the zipper.
It was the sewers who pressed the Georges to expand the business. With the calving coveralls thy were only busy during the winter months. They liked the added income and wanted to sew year round. The Georges are now making fire-retardant work coveralls, riding slickers, palpation sleeves, hunting suits, calf slings and aprons.
Experienced in organizing
Balancing several businesses is not new to Debra. She came from a family that owned a grocery story, school buses, gravel trucks and a veterinary supply business. Debra put herself through college driving a gravel truck.
It was with that background the Georges added their own veterinary supply business to their 750-acre farm and 100-head cow herd a few years before the Splasher business.
The sidelines add extra income to the farm. It’s unlikely it will usurp the farm business, said Marvin, but it makes farming a lot easier.
