Under CEO Kim Kent, 179-Year-Old Kentwool Remains Woven Into Fabric Of Upstate
Kentwool has been spinning wool into luxury yarn for five generations — 179 years. For almost seven decades, the yarn has been manufactured in Pickens.
Yet many people don’t realize that Kentwool is an important part of the fabric of the Upstate, says Kim Kent, who became the company’s owner and CEO five years ago.
“So many people do not realize we are a local company. That shocks me to my core. I want people to know we're here. We are an engaged corporate citizen. We have an office on Main Street, and we have a facility in Pickens,” Kent says.
“We’re a proud business in the Upstate.”
Kentwool employs about 55 local workers, conducts business in the United States and abroad – and sources domestically whenever possible, she says.
“We’ve made a commitment to the local area, the state and the country. The decision was made in 1843 to employ and manufacture in the United States. It was easier then,” Kent says. “When everyone offshored, we did not offshore. We were committed to the people in our area. And we continue that commitment.”
As proud as she is of Kentwool, Kent could not have imagined that she would lead it. She grew up in a small town in Georgia and graduated from Converse College in Spartanburg before heading to the University of South Carolina School of Law.
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After graduation, Kent began a career in governmental affairs and lobbying. She worked with the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, the S.C. Department of Commerce, and eventually formed Copper Dome Strategies, LLC, in Columbia with two partners. She still works with the firm.
Her path to Kentwool and Greenville began when she married Mark Kent in 2007.
“Kentwool was Mark's family business,” she explains. “He was fifth-generation leadership of the company.” Mark’s father, the late W. Tom Kent, had moved the company headquarters from Philadelphia to the Upstate in 1954.
A few years into their marriage, Mark persuaded Kim to become involved in the business, serving as corporate counsel and joining the Advisory Board of the company.
He also elicited a promise that she would take over the company if anything happened to him.
“No one thinks that's going to happen,” Kim Kent recalls.
But it did. Mark passed away unexpectedly in 2017. Thanks to their foresight and Kim’s involvement, Kentwool remains family-owned and -operated.
“I took over right after his passing. It never occurred to me not to do it. Mark asked me to do it. He trusted me to do it. We needed to focus on preserving the company for the next generation,” she says.
“I met with the team immediately to tell them we were not going to sell the company. I wanted to provide comfort and stability to the team who had certainly been working for the company much longer than me, many of them for generations.”
Kent listened, asked questions, and gained the trust of the leadership team assembled by her late husband.
“I didn't need to reinvent the wheel. We had people who knew exactly how to make the best yarn in this country. All I had to do was not screw it up,” she says.
“We bring in the raw material, and we turn it into wool yarn. Then we sell it to apparel manufacturers. There are not a lot of people left in this country who do what we do.”
The key to the company’s survival and success is being small, nimble and responsive to customers, Kent says.
“We are a 100% custom manufacturer. We are not making a product to sit on shelves and wait for someone to buy it,” she says.
“Our customers come to us and say, ‘We want to make this amazing fabric for a high-end luxury sweater. And we need yarn that feels like this and looks like this with colors that range from this to this.’ Then our team in Pickens meets with the customer’s design team and technical team, and we talk through how to bring their vision to life.”
The team produces “a high-end quality product that customers use to produce their luxury goods. People who want to make an inexpensive item are not going to seek out our product.”
One of those high-end products is Kentwool socks – Mark Kent’s creation and an offshoot of the textile and yarn-spinning business.
An avid golfer, Mark wanted to produce durable, comfortable socks that protected his feet from blisters, his wife says. “Of course, it would have our yarn as its primary component.”
“Our product is created with the finest Merino wool, and the price reflects this level of quality. It's fantastic, and it also lasts forever. We are very proud of it.”
What makes Kentwool’s products special? It starts when the sheep. “We have relationships with ranchers and suppliers. We are very particular about where we get our wool. We try to buy our wool 100% domestically. There's not always enough supply.”
After the sheep are shorn, the wool goes to a company in Jamestown, South Carolina, where it is washed. “Then our facility in Pickens magically turns it into yarn,” Kent says.
Employees use technology to quality-check the wool that comes in and the yarn that goes out. The wool is not dyed in Pickens; Kentwool has a partner in North Carolina that manages that part of the process.
“Our footprint is so small,” Kent explains. “We have a low-impact facility. We don't discharge water. We don't pollute. We're a dry operation, and what we do generate in waste, we recycle.”
As the company nears its 180th anniversary and Kent nears her five-year mark as CEO, she and the team are ready to start planning what comes next.
“We have men and women at our company who are doing terrific things. It’s the greatest unexpected gift of my life to find myself in this position,” Kent says.
“It's been fun. It's been hard. It’s been challenging. But it’s also super rewarding.”
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Under CEO Kim Kent, Kentwool Remains Woven Into Fabric Of Upstate
