BTC Bonus Interview - Chris Warren - Wesco Boots

and then this is our owner roberto's house right here oh okay you guys own the neighborhood yeah they used to do the pictures of this before wesco was built are crazy they're crazy it was like holy cow yeah there's nothing here was there no [Music] you know i just want people to have an informed um view of of what we're about what we do and i want them to be i want people to be excited too you know you get a pair of west skills what's cool about that [Music] a lot of people get here and they're like they'll call am i here like yeah there's a west coast sign out from you're here oh you mean a company from 1918. that's part of what's cool about it but like the rich family history the family that's still here that owns it and oversees it and runs it get a good shot yeah okay we'll rip up to the factory and then we'll kind of just do a walk through yeah and then just kind of show you well basically just do a tour for you this has been quite a peek behind the curtain man yeah i think uh you get the bigger picture [Music] you know most people just want to see what's going on and it's very real it's not this huge production thing of where people aren't really interacting really involved you know part of it that's behind the scenes it's still in the secret recipe is equally as fun to me and it's it's time i mean we haven't had anyone shoot any type of anything in here for a long time [Music] you walk around it's it's you know i mean i'm pretty sure you felt comfortable here absolutely you know and you're pretty lucky too because we aren't doing tours we're not letting anyone in with everything we've done here in the last couple days people are gonna feel like they had a tour oh for sure are we in usa and it's got the square footage it's such a primitive feeling when you're back there and you start in the hide room yeah and then okay well this is the material and then watch them cut and then these two pieces become one piece and then all of a sudden you can see a boot start to come out it gets exciting if you smell uh you know some of the leathers definitely have different smells oh yeah for sure yeah i mean i don't want to sound gross but i was like smiling all of them back there oh you just sounded gross i mean it's all done by hand so there's no there's no real assembly where you just set it in and it doesn't everything upstairs you're watching and we skive everything and we know where every stitch has to be i mean there's definitely an art to it [Music] i just want people to see how tangible it is and you literally if you think about it picking out skins animal skins like how many thousands of years have we've been doing that as humans yeah you look at that and you're like oh okay but it also helps you have a better understanding when you're watching everything attached like oh okay that's the shell that's the part that touches you know my instep over the top of my foot that back piece goes around my heel like you kind of start processing that putting it all together [Music] what you've seen i mean that's uh hopefully the insight we can give you know it doesn't even have to be a customer just anyone that's interested in the craft of of something that's still made in the states that's like full hands-on [Music] is unique [Music] yeah from the start of our from our leather room where you're looking at it and then as it starts to take shape and come to life as a boot you can definitely see that shell before it goes downstairs in the basement like you're looking at those like oh okay yeah now they're a boot [Music] yeah these are crazy right these are nuts yeah how many of them are oh total yeah over five thousand yeah are you familiar with when they started like how big the operation was and how many boots they were making and oh 19 19 18. when you're looking at those pictures downstairs there's one that i was talking about it was over on the back side of where harvey's at and that's that's the whole crew so the insole that you're gonna stand on is actually nailed to this and that's the soft spot we'll pull those out later so were they making just one boot for a specific purpose back then so it started out where they were doing they were doing timber boots and so there were multiple locations in portland once they started here in the 30s and the factory was ready to go it's been here ever since if you look at a big map back then you'd see the house up here and this that was it because during yeah because when the depression happened our founders saved the equipment but lost the buildings in portland so at that point he had some some property in sandy and they traded it and then what brian's going to do is he's going to wrap this around the toe and we'll glue it and tack it here then we're going to put the hard toe over the top of it then you look at our engineer boot up on the wall that was made in the 30s and that was for when they were welding on the ships and they were burning their laces out of their boots they wanted to pull on that was easy to slip off so anyway through the years if you look at the boots that we have on the on the wall over there everything had a purpose so you look and people ask like well why did you have an engineer boot and you know people are like oh it's for locomotives and the engineers on the trains and i'm like well i mean ours we still have letters and stuff that people were writing to the company and thank yous and all that it's like that boot there specifically was during the welding of the ships that's so cool i didn't know that harvey and brian are stretching the skins and putting the toes in yeah they're doing the liner their hands are so strong yeah it's physical man yeah i can tell so we've kind of maneuvered it down there where you can use some of those machines to pull that leather and last them but hand lasting was something that you'd have multiple people just lasting boots by hand but you watch our flow and it's like oh yeah it's awesome it just all makes sense we put a lot of time and effort into that i completely probably like i feel like i know everybody who works here now like know that yeah i could walk through the factory and be like i don't went from acquaintance to friend to family yeah and this is what we're gonna attach all the rubber souls to so like were your rubber souls sewn through yeah this is what we put on prior to that anybody should feel lucky to work here i feel like once you get through the gate you're part of westco and you want to be here for the long haul i mean we want you to be here for a bit like it's a hard craft to learn i remember and i've told this a couple times but i was out there on that sewing machine oh well i was going to do this job that this guy had done for years and years and years and he wasn't really like an open book about it he was like look this he he basically told me this is how it works good luck so i'm trying to figure it out figure out and i'd go over and i'd feel so stupid i'd just be like hey uh in in the coolest part of all of it was after i had learned that job and then learned his job he's like hey saw them boots you did in the back he's like you know what they're actually as good or better than anything i've done but it wasn't it wasn't me soaking that up as far as it was just listening to him know that the next person that was taking over that position that he'd done for like 22 25 years just that job alone was gonna do it to a level that he could respect and appreciate i was taking shots of the kind of just the linkage and things that were running those yeah it's hypnotic yeah that's how many little moving parts there are in that what's your favorite station do you think station stitching yeah i mean i like talking obviously dude i can't stop talking but i like nailing too oh yeah so those clinch so on the bottom of our shoe last there's metal so when michael hits that it crimps over that's what holds everything together what do you think you'd do if you didn't work here oh no idea i always have to do something i've never i've never been one to not be employed you've been here for 20 years though yeah so let's say you never came to west coast boy that's deep um you know actually when i decided to move up here i came to the northwest and just kind of he reminded me a home in northern california yeah humble anyway i just long story short ended up up here and just never wanted to leave [Music] that's where you started though right on the floor yeah the big machines out here the rapid ease yeah stitching on those was like the first thing and i remember coming through and i was like what what position are you hiring for and uh man i saw those and it's like dude they sound like just a gun out there going off i love it when somebody buys a pair of our boots and like hey at first i thought holy crap these things are 750 dollars and then they proceed to tell us how amazing they are now they're like the best thing that they put on their feet and they've never you know loved that the feel and the quality and just we love it because we're still making them how we always have and someone else has joined the westco family but man it just happens all over i'll see someone and it's kind of like old bikes oh dude i bet yeah yeah it's same same you know they've got it on their feet they've worn it don't go back once you know the difference i try and i actually warn people about this i'm like hey listen you're gonna put these things on and immediately you're gonna understand and and when someone picks up our boot they can genuinely feel how solid of a boot it is [Applause] you know you just gotta take the take the first step there's a oh that's good that's a tag line right there dude have you said that before or just say that just getting that out of here we're gonna use that later take the first step let's go you can always hear right out here you hear them nailing those heels on yeah and this is the finish line is it not yep yep yeah finishing department's right outside the door it's when you're back there watching and putting together it's hard not to be like just let me try just let me try it let me do what i do from there to there you know people call in and it's like well why why um tell me about theirs versus yours and it's like i'm just gonna tell you about ours and why they're what you'll what you'll get from westco we can't make everything that's out there and we don't want to lesco's future is not to copy all these other brands you know people will say oh well they're making a better version of it and for me it's like we're trying to make the best version of our boots and that's the key [Music] i'm a little shocked to see the process and how many hands it does go through in a day just to get to the end of the line right here in the you know on the finish line yeah it's a big handoff i have a super good team behind me i mean i never want to be though i love like our team here and they all bust their house and that's clearly that's a bigger you've walked through and seen like i mean [Music] our yeah our employees are just they're getting after it and it's uh we're all in it together [Music] bye

Channel: Todd Blubaugh

Views: 13,152

Keywords: Americana, Motorcycle, Made in America, Harely Davidson, Boots, Leather, Footwear, Blubaugh, Blue Todd Cast, Wesco Boots, Style, Mens Style, Rugged Style, Vintage Motorcycles, American Manufacturing

Id: GwVkbs-z0Jk

Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022