KALAPAKI BEACH – Bob Hedin, president of Paradise Sportswear and holder of a master’s degree in electronic engineering and over 20 patents, still finds time to joke about the unlikely success his second job has provided him.
A civilian employee at the U.S. Navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility, Hedin won the 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year award for his leadership of Paradise Sportswear, home of the original red-dirt shirt.
It started after Hurricane ‘Iniki ravaged the predecessor company’s Kalaheo shop, destroying many T-shirts and staining several others with iron-rich Kaua’i dirt.
After moving to Port Allen and creating Paradise Sportswear, he found when McBryde Sugar was still working canefields adjacent to the warehouse that dust floated into the warehouse during harvesting.
After trying everything short of atomic fusion to remove the orange dirt from the white T-shirts that the hurricane and harvesting process brought in, and almost closing the business, Hedin had the brilliant idea of working with the coloration instead of against it.
The first red-dirt shirts were made as a sort of joke, Hedin recalled.
His wife Margo asked who would buy a red-dirt shirt.
At first, it was residents who purchased the shirts, sending them to friends abroad.
The couple and company thought that was the end of it.
Then, the visitors started buying them. And buying them, and buying them.
To date, over one million red-dirt shirts have been sold worldwide, generating $3 million in sales each year.
Paradise Sportswear, begun in Port Allen eight years ago, now has eight stores in Hawai’i, two on the mainland, and over 150 wholesalers.
The good thing about his business is that there’s plenty raw material, Hedin joked while accepting the award.
“We’re having a good time with it,” he said.
Hedin was nominated by the staff of Paradise Sportswear. The Kaua’i Chamber of Commerce, First Hawaiian Bank and Hawai’i Business magazine sponsor the annual award.
Originally from California, Hedin graduated from the University of Southern California with a master’s degree in electronic engineering.
He started several electronics companies, and has over 20 patents in various electronic systems, lasers and electronic identification systems.
On Kaua’i, Hedin developed his love for art, and has sold many paintings.
It was his love for art which eventually led him to start his sideline of manufacturing T-shirts.
Even Hurricane ‘Iniki couldn’t stop Paradise Sportswear, though it did severe damage to the factory, destroyed T-shirts and stained others with the now-world-famous Kaua’i red dirt.
Rather than packing it in, Hedin had a great idea to turn adversity into another invention.
He recalls thinking, “Hey, this is a pretty cool color.” Despite his wife’s skepticism, he forged ahead, eventually drawing on Margo Hedin’s creative art and photography to develop a line of shirts that now helps employ 50 local people in the factory and eight shops around the islands.
Asked what advice he would have for local entrepreneurs wishing to start their own business, “My first reaction is that it’s an awful lot of work, but there’s also a lot of excitement with it, and if they’ve got the enthusiasm and the drive, then I think it’s worth it,” said Hedin.
The sincerest form of flattery is the fact that shops in Hawai’i, and even as far away as Georgia, have copied the dying process and created their own red-dirt shirts.
“I think that’s sort of actually a plus to be good enough (to be copied), that it wasn’t just a fad, that people did like it,” he said.
“We have several imitators throughout the whole country,” and Paradise Sportswear has a factory in Utah that uses the colored soil there.
“Some of it helps our company, too, by giving it status as an actual product,” and not just a fad or fluke, added Hedin, 63.
Hundreds of special red, white and blue dirt T-shirts have been sold, with portions of the profits of those sales split between the September 11th Fund and the Kaua’i Salvation Army Christmas Fund.
“We wanted to keep at least some of it here on the island,” said Hedin, who was happy to discuss the company’s newest line of shirts.
Lava blues are dark teal, stone-washed products, offering also a light-blue denim color and a sand color known as Hawaiian ocean hardware.
Working full-time at the base and still having a flourishing side business takes coordination, and Hedin said he is fortunate to have good management handling the day-to-day operations of Paradise Sportswear.
He pitches in daily (or nightly rather) after his shift at the base.
The events of September 11 have pushed back Hedin’s planned retirement from the base to devote his full-time energies to Paradise Sportswear.
While sales remain strong on Kaua’i, the Lahaina, Maui shops and Waikiki outlet have taken a beating as a result of fewer visitors to those islands.
The Kaua’i shops are at Waimea, Port Allen (where factory tours lay out the red-dirt manufacturing process), Harbor Mall in Nawiliwili, Kuhio Highway next to Kentucky Fried Chicken in Lihu’e, and at the Kaua’i Products Fair along Kuhio Highway in Kapa’a.
Business Editor Paul C.
Curtis can be reached at mailto:pcurtis@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext.
224).
