Carolina Pet Company
The Importance of Family
I am embarrassed. I live on McNeary Street in Prosperity, also known as Highway 391. My husband has lived on this street his entire life. Between us, we thought we knew everything there was to know about Prosperity and the surrounding area. Not so.
Just a few miles out of town on Highway 391, hidden in the woods, is one of the premier pet companies in America, Carolina Pet Company. If you have a dog bed that you bought from a catalog, it probably was made in Prosperity. If you have a PurrPadd® for your cat, it was made here. Who knew?
Carolina Pet Company is located in the old, O’Neal School building location. Christian Theodore is the co-owner/manager. His father-in-law is his partner. In the foyer of Carolina Pet, there is a bronze plaque that proclaims the school was erected in 1925. There is no plaque proclaiming the year the school was closed. (If you know, we would love to know, too.)
What happened after the school closed? There is signage above the outside entry that reads “Old School Manufacturing Company.” Most of the community just referred to the business as the “Sewing Room.” After Old School closed, two other sewing room businesses came and went at the location, Setlow and Sons and Dickie’s. It was just the “Sewing Room” to most of us. Over the years, the old school was renovated and added onto until it was a large manufacturing space that was eventually left vacant. We thought. Not so.
After the “Sewing Rooms” came pet companies. That’s right, “companies.” Carolina Pet is not the first pet company to be located in the now-large manufacturing building. Before Carolina Pet and after Dickie’s, there was Ramtec Inc. which was the company that manufactured PurrPadd®. Local area business man and Ramtec Inc. owner John McAllister invented the cat beds. He noticed when he was manufacturing his air conditioning filters that cats would wander in and always head straight for the air conditioning pads and stay there.
Being a good business man and obviously observant, he did more research, designed a cat bed made from air conditioning filter material, patented it, and started manufacturing PurrPadd® in the Old School Manufacturing building in 1993.
In 1995, McAllister developed a new design that added sides to the pads, which he called the KittyKuddler®. The KittyKuddler® also can be opened up into a play tunnel. He also patented this design.
The PurrPadd® has been one of the best selling cat beds in the US. Mike and I must confess we didn’t have a clue about this new business up at Old School. We still thought it was closed.
Years passed. McAllister decided to retire and wanted to sell his business and the building. At the same time, Christian Theodore made a decision to leave an enjoyable and lucrative career selling high-end medical equipment that kept him on the road and away from home Monday through Friday. His wife was expecting twins, their third and fourth children. “I wanted to be more than a weekend father,” he said.
At the same time, Christian’s father-in-law was retiring. They began looking for a business together. Timing—in business and life—is important.
Christian and his wife live in Asheville, where they had met. He told his father-in-law that he was willing to commute no more than two hours to run their new business. To make a long story short, the new business called KT Manufacturing, Inc. which made PurrPadd® at the old O’Neal School building was exactly, to-the-minute, two hours from their home in Asheville. It was meant to be.
PS: I know this commute seems really long, but Christian will tell you that it is nothing like the long driving he did when he was selling medical equipment. The important thing to Christian is that he sees his family every evening.
Christian Theodore and plant manager Jose
Christian and his father-in-law bought the business and the much expanded O’Neal School building from the McAllister family. KT Manufacturing, Inc. was opened for business in 2001. KT maintained PurrPadd®’s business relationship with Flexi-Mat in Chicago, the biggest dog bed/pet company in the US at the time. Owner Jim Elesh also graciously helped out by introducing Christian to his associates and the businessmen in the Chinese factories with which they worked. Business was good.
Until…Jim Elesh retired. This retirement did not work as well for Christian and his father-in-law as the first retirement had. Elesh sold his business to a Capital Group. In the beginning, it looked good. The new owners agreed to continue to buy KT’s PurrPadd® products.
Unfortunately, the new Flexi-Mat owners went bankrupt in 18 months.Christian immediately contacted the big box stores to see if they would buy his product directly from his company. They were not interested. Their policy is not to buy one item from a stand-alone company. That left KT stuck with a warehouse full of PurrPadd® and no where to send them.
Christian said in a voice choked with emotion after all of these years, “We were out of business Dec. 24, 2006.”
Then, a Christmas miracle happened.
In a time of business chaos, the adage of “Who you know is especially important” proved to be very true. Luckily, the relationship with Flexi-Mat had introduced Christian not only to the Chinese businessmen, but also to Penny Stolfe, who worked for the company and Ed Bobowski, who represented Flexi-Mat to many of the biggest catalogs in the country. Penny, Ed and Christian became allies. Everybody was looking for a way to get out of this business catastrophe. Three is stronger than one. A way was found.
The Chinese businessmen had 11 shipping containers of dog beds already on a ship on the way to the US. The once thriving, now bankrupted, company Flexi-Mat would not, could not pay the Chinese company for these already “sold” products. The Chinese managers knew Christian had a large facility and wanted to know if they could store the containers there once they got to America.
What had been a catastrophe now looked like an opportunity to Christian and his new partners. He said to the Chinese, “Sure, we’ll take them (Long Pause) on one condition. We get to keep all of the dog bed catalog business.” The answer was “yes.” It’s called “turning on a dime” in the business world. It was, however, a bit more than a dime.
The Chinese businessmen needed their money. Christian needed to resurrect his business. Dogs now were part of the business plan. KT opened back up and Carolina Pet Company was formed and opened in 2007, less than one year from the Christmas Eve debacle. Christian and his father-in-law are majority owners of the business with partners Penny and Ed.
Now, there were two businesses in the Old School working side by side: KT and Carolina Pet. Mike and I had no clue.
These were busy times for the business. The staff at KT/Carolina Pet had to grow quickly to handle this surge in business. Business relationships had to be developed and nurtured with Chinese factories that provided the material and could sew the complicated beds for prices that no longer could be matched in the US. KT continues making cat beds in-house and Carolina Pet still makes standard dog beds and finishes off the dog beds sewn in China.
Since workers were now finishing off the dog beds that arrive flat like pillow cases from China, the company bought equipment to fill the dog beds in the facility. They chose to use a filler that is made from recycled green soda bottles. Reduce, reuse, recycle works in business, too.
Business relationships had to be developed with all of the catalog and on-line outlets. All the major players were now customers: L.L.Bean, Cabela, Wayfair, Pet Smart, Petco, Overstock, the list goes on. Business partner Ed was and is very helpful with this part of the business. Carolina Pet had to meet the requirements of each business partner.
They also only work with Chinese companies vetted by L.L. Bean. This vetting protects Carolina Pet from working with manufacturers who use child labor or have other labor concerns, as well as assuring quality control. Standards are high.
Designing and making dog beds for all of these outlets brings another business adage to mind: If you are doing the same thing you have always done, you are not growing. One example of change in the business is all of the different designs today for dogs. Examples are beds for dogs who chew, winter/summer beds with different fabrics on each side, and more different sizes of beds. The company also does much more than beds now, including leashes, coats, toys, etc.
The color and fabric design is also a big change in their business. “In the beginning, the best selling color for dog beds was khaki, khaki, khaki,” Christian explained. Not so today.
One of the key moments for this change was partner Penny’s visit in 2015 with Pendleton Woolen Mills, the iconic family company that started in 1863 in Oregon and is still thriving. Pendleton first made wool blankets for Native Americans. They did designs for each tribe and were known for their vivid color and intricate designs. Their business evolved and the company brought color to the original bland American work shirt. They have continued to expand their lines of colorful clothing and products since that time. One of their newest additions is a National Park line of blankets, clothing, and other accessories.
Pendleton said to Penny, “We would like for Carolina Pet to make a line of pet products for us for the National Park line.” Each design is based on the color that dominates that National Park. They are very colorful and unique.
Again, Carolina Pet rose to the occasion and met the stringent design and production demands of Pendleton. The National Park line, which includes dog beds and apparel, collars, toys and throws, is the most popular line that Carolina Pet currently produces. Their other dog beds, apparel, collars, toys and throws are a bit more colorful now, too. Change is good! (Check out CarolinaPetCompany.com. Click on Shop, Pendleton, National Parks. While you are at it, just look at everything. Dogs have never had it so good.)
Christian is proud to announce that Carolina Pet Company in Prosperity has given $100,000 back to the National Parks because of the success of this collaboration. The company also helps dog shelters through their buy-one-bed/give-one-bed program on their website called helpinghound. Giving back is a strong tenet of Carolina Pet Company.
For a business, this partnership with Pendleton was like winning an Academy Award or hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win.“Pendleton put us on the map. A lot of people come to us because of what we have done with them,” said Christian with a smile.
For example, Carolina Pet has just signed a licensing agreement with Shinola, a high-end, up and coming company in Detroit. First known for their excellent watches, the company is expanding its selection of fine products, soon to include Carolina Pet products. Check out Shinola.com to find out more about the company.
Top Row: Rebekah, Louis, Antonio, Joel; Middle Row: Mr. Christian, Brenda, Mary, Betty, Ana, Carmen, Jose; Bottom Row: Ely, Lisbeth, Mariana, Brenda, Patty, Lillian
Christian is very proud of his team, his work family. “It’s not about me,” he says. “It’s about the team.” It’s the reason he asked for a group picture for this article. It’s the reason he bought all of his employees a company jacket embroidered with the company logo by BJ Graphix in Newberry to wear for the photo. Carolina Pet has worked with BJ Graphix for many years.
In addition to jackets, he thanks his team with personal compliments, with cakes for their birthdays, with bonuses at Christmas based on the number of years each employee has been with the company. He knows the importance of family, whether it is the family that he goes home to every night or the work family that he works with all day.
How do the employees feel? Check out the quotes below the photos of Betty, Rebekah, Brenda, and Jose. Notice the number of times “family” is mentioned.
Mike and I are humbled that we didn’t know about what an amazing business was going on right under our noses here in the Prosperity area. We wonder if there are any more amazing businesses hidden in the trees around Prosperity and Newberry County. Call me: (803) 924-1717. We don’t want to be embarrassed again. We need to get to know all of our neighbors, all of our community family.
