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MBA Student’s Redhanded Bags Help Make Sustainability Tangible

The messenger bags that Poole College’s incoming Jenkins MBA and MGIM Luxury Management students are receiving during their first days of orientation this year have more connecting them with the college than the logo stitched to their covers. The bags were produced by a sustainability oriented company started by one of the college’s current MBA students, Aaron Turney, and his wife Tracy.

Poole College’s Jenkins graduate programs staff had sought a sustainability focused vendor for the bags it distributes to new students in its MBA and Master of Global Innovation Management (MGIM) program. The qualifying bid came from the couple’s company, Redhanded Bags (RHB), located just 11 miles away, in Apex, N.C.

“Tracy and I started RHB in late 2007, got our business licensed in Feb 2008. It was really Tracy’s experience that got us into the handbag biz,” Aaron Turney said. Her maiden name – Russomano – inspired the company name (mano means hand in Spanish), and her experience with sewing guided their purchase of equipment and set the pace for their products.

“She was making bags for herself and getting all kinds of compliments, so I very naively assumed we could make millions,” he said. “I had lost my job and was looking for work with no luck, so we invested everything in our own venture,” he said. That investment includes his own prior experience.

Drawing on Experience, Coursework

“I did have quite a bit of operations and management experience, which has been useful. Also, I have been into creative art and writing my whole life, which has helped me with brand building, advertising, product design, marketing materials.”

Aaron Turney is entering his final year as a part-time student in the Jenkins MBA program, in the marketing concentration. With four classes left, he expects to graduate in May 2013.

“My MBA studies have been invaluable,” he said. “Many things are counterintuitive to the entrepreneur and I have my MBA training to thank for not making some serious missteps. For example, determining costs, pricing strategies, value analyses, segmentation/targeting, industry analysis, and accounting are just a few areas in which I have been able to apply what I have learned directly in order to orient my company’s activities coherently.”

An alumni of NC State’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences, where he completed a graduate program in literature and composition. Turney said, “I love NC State … and really didn’t want to go anywhere else for my MBA.” He started in the MBA program in 2010 with the goal of preparing for a career in marketing, including possibly product management, brand development and advertising.

“I have been designing products for five years, so I’m very user-oriented when I analyze products and brand ideas,” he said.

Environmental Responsibility, Sustainabilty

The Turneys’ personal commitment to environmental responsibility led them to take a similar approach in their business.

“We began making vinyl bags and quickly learned how toxic the stuff is,” he said. “In our personal lives, we try to practice environmental responsibility and buy non-sweatshop goods. When faced with a business decision as to whether to choose cheap material or incorporate more eco-friendly (and pricey) materials, the decision was easy but not necessarily the most profit oriented,” he said.

“The greatest threat to sustainability is the nature of our 21st Century disposable culture,” Turney continues. “For example, PVC is horrible stuff and there are better alternatives, but if everyone had a PVC bag and kept it for 10 years, we’d be a lot better off than if we continued with our current habits and used all “eco” materials. That said, eco materials are the next best thing to just practicing modest buying habits. Cheap products made with cheap labor are brought to market with the expectation that they will fail or break within a year or so and need to be replaced. It’s the most pathological cycle in history in terms of environmental irresponsibility. And it’s not just bags, it’s everything: electronics, apparel, toys, sports gear, you name it.”

Three-step Approach to Sustainability

Turney explains RHB’s approach to sustainability. “In our products, we reduce overall environmental impact by engaging in these three practices,” he said.

First, they recycle their scrap materials at a local scrap exchange.

Second, they use certified eco or organic materials. “The best are actually made in water-recapturing facilities or use post-consumer material, or are urethane (PVC-free) based. Urethane or polyester materials are biodegradable in the presence of oxygen,” he said, noting that “landfills – which compact the trash) are a huge problem” because materials don’t break down without oxygen.

Third, they buy U.S.-made materials. “The carbon footprint associated with importing has more environmental impact than any of the actual materials themselves,” he said. “When we say yes to stuff shipped from Asia, we welcome staggering amounts of emissions into the atmosphere. We also are anti-slave labor activists, but for emissions alone, sourcing U.S. is critical. Unfortunately, some products simply aren’t produced domestically and we have to use Korean or Taiwanese stuff.”

The bags received by Poole College’s Jenkins MBA and MGIM students this fall were designed to be functional and durable, produced with over 75 percent urethane coated poly, which “scores pretty well in the reduced-VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) category, Tourney said. He adds, “but the fact that they were manufactured and delivered from 11 miles away is equally noteworthy.”

The Turney’s business also is family friendly.

In addition to functional messenger bags and their full line of gifts and accessories – ladies’ bags, computer bags, sports bags, water bottle holders – they also offer sewing classes, primarily in a group setting. Their clientele for the classes ranges from women in their 30s to 50s and girls ages eight to 12, depending on the particular class, Tourney said.

“There’s a huge local market for this offering,” he said. “Getting the word out is our biggest challenge. Being cash-operated, we have been able to commit a very modest investment and have gotten modest results. It does, however, grow all the time. If we had a larger budget, we could really pack the classes.

RHB’s family friendly focus means the Turney’s two children, Mae and Jack, ages 14 and 12, also get involved.

“We are a very close family and pretty much just hang out and crack jokes all the time,” Turney said. “Both our kids pull some hours at the shop. We don’t make them work full days or anything, but we pay them to be there. It helps us spend time together when we’re really slammed, and it also teaches them about how a business works,” he said.

“Mae does a lot of web mastering, social media updates, administrative stuff, and some instructing with kids.” Most of the sewing classes draw children. “Jack is also a competent instructor, but spends more time in the back shop measuring and cutting and doing some sewing, too.”

Aaron Turney, who also does a good bit of the sewing, said that he sees “sewing as both functional and a creative outlet.”

Creativity, humor

That is reflected in the mood that permeates the small shop located in a tidy office complex in Apex, N.C. There’s an easy banter between the Turneys, encouraging words for the children making cloth dolls during their sewing lessons in the front of the shop, and a collegial interaction with their seamster.

“Personally, creativity – and humor – is everything,” Aaron Turney said. “It is the personality of our whole business. Our chief objective is to connect customers – whether they are students in a class or need a product designed – with their own creativity by setting them in the right direction. It is really about fostering an environment that makes folks feel comfortable with their ideas.”

One example of that is the team building experiences that they’ve built around a quilt sewing project that Poole College’s new Jenkins MGIM luxury concentration students are completing during their orientation. “Tracy came up with the idea. Once she suggested it, we developed it together and came up with a dynamic, fun, and practical team building exercise,” he said.

Teamwork – and humor – appears to be a key part of their business operations. For example, the company depends on sewing machines that work. “Tracy knew what stuff to get. I learned to fix it because I want her to like me,” he said. The Turneys look for a similar balance of skills and personality when staffing their other operations, and have run into the same problem that many employers face. “We have lost so much money hiring people who claim to be able to do what we do and then not being able to deliver,” he said.

They have had success with two staff members from NC State’s College of Design, Savannah Harding and Cori Smith, who design and sew, and teach sewing camps, respectively. Mithat Batca is their “amazing seamster – I mean amazing,” Turney says. And their “chief instructor, Mara Phenix, is a neighborhood friend who is just very vibrant and talented and charming – customers love her.”

Photo

Aaron and Tracy Turney, founders of Redhanded Bags (Aaron is in the final year of his part-time Jenkins MBA program), and a sampling of the messenger bags they created for the incoming Jenkins MBA full time class.

View more photos of the bags in production and other activity at Redhanded Bags on Poole College’s Flickr pages. [Search for Jenkins MBA Class of 2012-14.]

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