Our Story
On December 29, 2006, my charmed life suffered a catastrophic career earthquake. After leading the kid's division of a family owned shoe business for 6.5 years, the owner came into my office with his son and told me that his other son will be taking over my position and I was being let go. A week later, I was interviewing for a high profile job and during the interview process, my perspective boss began to refer to me as one of "her people". This did not sit well with me and on the taxi ride back to the airport, I called my wife and told her to put a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge. She asked me if I got the job and I told her to just wait up for me. That night, I mentioned to her that I felt we could start and run a company on our own. 18 years in the shoe business was a strong foundation. I told her that fundamentally, I wanted to work in an environment that reflected my morals and values. She suggested that I take some time to write a business plan. 5 weeks later, I presented the business plan to start a kids shoe company to her. We talked about it for a week and then decided to put our beautiful home on the market. We sold our home in about 4 months, packed up and moved to a rental in Texas (to be close to our factory).
This is truly a family business. Each child is involved and participates in our shoe development process. I handle the footwear sales, products, and factory. Margo handles all things accounting. Andrew (14) updates twigfootwear.com. Kelsey (11) offers us advice on color and patterns for the boys and girls footwear. Elizabeth (5) is one of our shoe fit test models. We have all had to make sacrifices, and it is fair to say that we are living our lives very differently from our former life. However, we are all very proud of the fact that this wonderful kid's footwear business is ours! Twig’s mission is to help ensure the survivability of the “mom and pop” independent shoe store. We do not sell department or big box stores. This is done by choice, not by chance.
If you have purchased a Twig product, we want to express our gratitude to you. You have helped a family realize their dream.