Green Buffalow: Changing The One-Size-Fits-All Game Of Wildland Firefighting PPE With Korena Hallam And Summer Hurd

Despite the changes we have made, would you believe that PPE hasn’t been changed in 30 years? It continues to be governed by antiquated rules that no longer best serve what we need today. In this episode, Korena Hallam and Summer Hurd from Green Buffalow dive deep into the changes we need to see, especially when it comes to the different needs between men and women in the field. They explain the complex and technical nature of creating a wildland firefighting PPE that fits and performs WAY better. Plus, they let us in on what it’s like starting a small business, how they’ve grown it, and what lessons they learned along the way. Korena and Summer are definitely changing the one-size-fits-all game of wildland firefighting PPE. Tune in now to learn how they are making headways despite it all. 

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Green Buffalow: Changing The One-Size-Fits-All Game Of Wildland Firefighting PPE With Korena Hallam And Summer Hurd

This episode is going to be brought to you by Mystery Ranch, Built for the Mission. Have you haven't been rocking a Mystery Ranch fire line pack? That sucks to be you because everything probably hurts, especially your shoulders, back, hips, feet, knees, and all that jazz. Get the best in the game and go over to www.MysteryRanch.com where you can find all of your load-bearing essentials, even outside of wildland firefighting packs. It's pretty awesome. If you want to go peel a trophy elk off the side of the hill or go for a camping trip, hike the PCT, go fly fishing, or get a pack for your everyday carry essentials, look no further than Mystery Ranch.

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The show is also going to be caffeinated by none other than our premier coffee sponsor and that's going to be Hotshot Brewery. It's kickass coffee for kickass cause and a portion of the proceeds will always go back to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. If you're looking for some good coffee or some of the tools of the trade to get your morning started or a whole slew of wildland firefighter-themed apparel, look no further than Hotshot Brewery. You can go over there and check it out, get all your tools of the trade, and help support a good cause at the same time. Go over to www.HotshotBrewing.com and check out all of the tools of the trade to get your money to start right, all of the apparel, and some kickass coffee for a kickass cause. Go check them out.

Last but not least, the show is not sponsored or brought to you by but it is one of those close relationships I have with Bethany over there at the American Wildfire Experience. I want to show her some love for as long as I can because I believe in her cause and mission. She's got some rad stuff going on. If you don't know what the American Wildfire Experience is, they house the Smokey Generation. I know for a fact a lot of people out there have seen that rolling around. It's pretty awesome. What it is is a digital storytelling platform telling the story of a Wildland Fire. There have to be over 250 of these stories out there but it's preserving the legacy of the folks in the field and the story of Wildland Fire.

Some of these stories even date back to the 1940s. It's pretty bitching. If you want a little history lesson, sign up for the Smokey Generation grant program. If you got a compelling story and you're telling the story of Wildland fire through the lens of a camera, a video camera, or a still camera, through a blog or some animations, there was this one dude out there who moved mountains with spoons and it's kickass. They're a Smokey Generation grant recipient. The sky is the limit. Tell the story. If you want to find out more, go over to www.WildFire-Experience.org and check it all out. Bethany, you have a kickass organization over there. Keep it up.

What's going on, ladies and gentlemen? I hope everybody is doing well and is still getting their head in the game. It's been slow. It might pick up here pretty soon so buckle up. I don't know about everybody who's reading this but there is some serious shit going on with PPE. It hasn't changed in many years. It's got some pretty antiquated rules to live by like the NFPA 1977 committee and that's not a year. That is an NRS code or a code for whatever that's filed under it. We can all agree that there are some inconsistencies with manufacturing, especially when it comes to the difference between men and women.

This is a one size fits all game but there's a company out there that's trying to change the game and make better-fit stuff specifically for men and women. They're going to be changing the game here when it comes to PPE, not only with the cuts, materials, and all that stuff. The materials aren't going to change much because they're required by this NFPA 1977 thing but at least the cuts. They're petitioning and working behind the scenes with the NFPA to change some of those regulations that they have to live by. Showing that amount of dedication to get the right fitting PPE into the game, that's pretty cool. We're going to talk all about tech, PPE, and entrepreneurship.

We're going to talk about since 2015, these folks have been around trying to change the game. This company is none other than a company called Green Buffalow. We're going to have the Founders on the show by the names of Summer and Korena. They are deeply passionate about the subject. The reason being why is that Korena is a wife of a wildland firefighter for many years. She's had a front-row seat to the wildland fire industry and she wants to change the game. Summer also is a fifteen-year veteran of the apparel design industry. She's deeply passionate about it as well because she gives a shit and she cares about the community. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce my two good friends, Summer and Korena from Green Buffalow. Welcome to the show.

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Welcome back to another episode. In this episode, I’ve got Korena and Summer from Green Buffalow. I’m pretty sure 100% of you wear some PPE on the field. These are the people to talk to, especially if you're a woman. Take it away, Summer. How are you doing?

Great. Thanks so much for having us.

A pleasure to have you. Korena, how are you?

Good. How are you? I’m glad to be here.

I’m glad you have joined us on the show. Let's talk all about PPE and how you guys are changing the game for PPE. There are not a lot of options out there for women, stuff that fits. You're going to town on this and trying to change that. I appreciate the hell out of that. Tell us about yourselves.

A little background, both Summer and I have educational backgrounds in apparel design and merchandising. I wanted to continue along this path but it didn't feel fulfilling to make a dress or children’s clothes. The market is so saturated. In 2015, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with that and do something different from my day job. I’m doing a little soul-searching and I told my husband, “I can't figure it out. I don’t know what to do.” He said, “My uniform is not the greatest.” Summer happens to live not very far from where I do. We were talking about this and she was feeling the same way.

We came together to take a further look at Wildland PPE. In the beginning, we’re like, “Let's do this for men.” My husband, get him something. As we were going down this path, it was very abundantly clear that women is wearing gear made for men. We quickly switched gears from looking at men's garments to women's garments. We went into it a little bit ignorant or blind. We didn't realize there are a lot of regulations and policies that we were unaware of. We thought, “We can knock this out and have something great.”

Wildland Firefighters are elite athletes in a sense. We thought we can easily go into the outdoor industry. Tell you what? We should have started the outdoor industry and then gone into Wildland. That was a learning curve. It's been very interesting. We've learned a lot. We're still learning a lot about policy and politics. It’s very interesting going from there and getting everything figured out, five years of R&D, and then making the product. We've had men buy the stuff that's made specifically for women because it fits them better than what's out there.

To hear that right, the women's stuff fits men better even. Did I hear that correctly?

Some men do.

If you look at some of the other competitors out there and the way they designed some of these pants, it's boxy. It's like wearing a kite or a sail for some people. I’m a small dude so sometimes, the problem lies, especially in the thighs, when they're built for someone with bigger thighs. I’m only 5’8” on a good day. I’ve never been 175 so I’m a small dude. When you get into these pants built for bigger guys, bigger thighs, or bigger stuff all around, it's not good because it rubs together. You then start chafing problems. I’ve taken pairs of greens, even forest service-issued greens to tailors to have them altered at points.

That's what we're hearing from everybody because we did a lot of surveys and testing in the market to find out what everybody needed and what the issues were. That's one thing that we noticed. We were finding the manufacturers that were producing these things but they didn't even have designers on staff to be able to adjust the garment as they needed. They came up with a pattern or got the pattern from somewhere, started producing it, and didn't do any market research or study sizing. My background as a technical apparel designer, I’m a sizing specialist.

It's what I do. I’m being able to size the people that we have in the market and find out what they need to be able to give that better fit. You're right. In men and women, there's all the chafing and bleeding. People are having to go to the doctor because of all this type of stuff. It's terrible that their uniforms are working against them so hard. It's already such a difficult field anyway. As long as you have something that can work with you and not against you, that makes your job so much easier.

If you look at different manufacturers of brands, I’m a fan of a company called C.O.O.L. They're out of Salt Lake City for wearing around. Pretty much throw a dart at a board of names of technical or outdoor apparel, they fit a lot different than everything else. The same thing with this company over here or over there. There's never a one size fits all solution because we're all humans. We're all built differently. Men and women are built differently and all that stuff. To come up with something in a PPE context and put it out there, that's huge.

Nobody has paid attention to this market very much. When we were getting into the market, that's what we kept hearing. Some people would say that we working within the Forest Service. We've heard from a lot of people but nobody stays to do anything because the rules and regulations are so difficult to work with and work around to try to change and implement something better, most people stop doing it and they move on to something else. Maybe making outdoors instead of helping this underserved community that needs help.

A broke one at that too. That's the hard part. You both know people in fire. You're married to people in fire. You know how much money we make. It's not a lot. It is hard to find something that’s not $700 for a pair of Nomex and something that's affordable that fits well. Buy once, cry once, I get it but having something that's affordable and also fits and will last, you're speaking my language.

That is something that’s very hard to come by because the fabric is very expensive. If we were in the outdoor industry, it’s super easy to do and much cheaper. Unfortunately, for us in Green Buffalow, we don't get to dictate that. The choices on the market are slim. It's few and far between and they're all at a much higher price point. The $700 pair of pants is not doable. I don't know how we can level the playing field. We’re trying to figure that out. We've talked a lot about fabric development and that goes into way more than what we have time for. I feel like there's got to be a better solution.

To further that point, you're not paying necessarily for the pants themselves with that price tag and some of the more expensive options. I’m loving your stuff. It's affordably priced. It's a couple of hundred bucks but PPE is going to be way more expensive than this, most likely, from other manufacturers. The thing is that there's a reason why this stuff costs so much. These are all patented, trademarked, and proprietary fabrics. You must use them and that's dictated by NFPA standards.

You mentioned something about you would take your stuff and get it tailored. A lot of people would do that as well but sometimes they don't realize that there are specific threads, buttons, hooks, and loops. All of that type of stuff has to meet these safety standards to be safe to use on the field. A lot of people will get their stuff altered and they're not using the Nomex threads or the para-aramids that are supposed to be used. That's putting them at risk and then their uniform becomes not as safe at that point.

Speaking and bringing it back to when I was taking my stuff down to a tailor to have it altered, I had to source my thread. Even down to the stitching requirements, there are regulations down to how many stitches per inch. That's all in NFPA standards. It's crazy. Since we're diving off the deep end here and going into NFPA talk, let's talk about NFPA and how complicated it is. Let's talk about the manufacturing process, all the regulations and rules, how those are set up, and how you have to navigate that stuff because that stuff is fascinating to me.

Everything is very specific. Every single component of the garment and then also the manufacturer has got to have a certain certification. It's very limited in terms of somebody on our scale trying to do some of this because we can't meet those manufacturers’ minimums. We're a small business trying to introduce ourselves to the market. We don't have the working capital to put out thousands for inventory. That's where the NFPA for us is a little bit hindering because every single thing is dictated by the standard. We'll say that we understand why it has to be there. There needs to be something in place but also it's so prohibitive that it does hurt some of the things that can be done. I do believe.

I’m sure Summer has got lots to say on that piece of it but the NFPA is one very hard to navigate. We've been very fortunate to have had a mentor welcome us into everything and help us navigate the system. If we didn't have him, we would still probably be plugging away at a much slower pace. We feel like we move at a snail's pace at times but we’re having that individual believe in what we're doing, and what we want to do, and helping us to implement some of this. We didn't approach the committee and say, “What you're doing is wrong.” We wanted to help and provide options.

Clothing is hard. Everybody's shape and size differ. You may be sitting in a room with five other guys and may not buy your clothes at the same place. Our biggest thing is let's have some options and create that for individuals because everybody we've spoken with does have some issue with their uniform. We're not saying we can make it perfect for everybody but we can be another option. With that, we did have to step outside of the box with the NFPA because everything is so limited. Every component that we use is NFPA certified. Our sizing does not fall within that.

We talked about where things fit and don't fit. That creates an option so we did have to step outside of the box. With the way the committee is moving, it sounds like they're eager for change. It does take a while to make these changes. We decided we couldn't go ahead and put something out there and build to this specific specification because it would be doing firefighters a disservice. If we were going to do it, we wanted to do it in a way that we're still working with the committee. However, we're providing something that we feel is a better fit for, not every individual but a lot of individuals, especially when women are wearing uniforms made for men. That is a huge disservice to them.

Wildland Firefighting PPE: We're providing something that we feel is a better fit for a lot of individuals, especially when women are wearing uniforms made for men.

You mentioned the small business thing too. You're already paying for the expensive fabrics. Those are all proprietary. You have to abide by these standards. It's cost prohibitive for you and the person that's going to be putting them on at the end of the day. It sucks but that's the way it has to be. What I’m bringing this into is, do you two have the opportunity to maybe push the direction of some of these standards and open up some more availability for different types of materials or some different standards? The sizing thing seems like a low-hanging fruit. Why is that a thing? I can understand you need minimum clearance for insulation between you, your skin, and the fabric but let's be real with this.

The big thing is when we first went to the committee, it was 2018 when we got invited to come and present. One of the things they told us is, “You're only going to have about ten minutes. Get up there, say what you need to say, and be done.” We were up there for almost an hour because there were so many questions and we opened this can of worms. They may not have loved everything that we were saying but one thing that we were told was that it's an issue that comes up at every single meeting but nobody has brought them a solution.

We were thanked by a committee member that didn't necessarily agree with what we were saying but appreciated that we came, present this information, and gave them a solution. Quite honestly with some of our competitors, they're manufacturing large scale. It is not lucrative for them to make all these changes. If you're thinking about women's gear, it's a smaller percentage. When they do their manufacturing and you make the slight change for a handful compared to what they're making, it doesn't make sense for them to change all their machines and do something a little bit different to pump out these garments. We understand what all of that entails. That's why we decided we would do what we could and work with smaller manufacturers.

Summers had a beg and plea for much smaller minimum order quantities for us so we can get something out there. We can get it in the marketplace and make sure that what we're providing is something that we feel good about putting out there. I’ll say that we did plenty of prototyping, wear trials, focus groups, and all kinds of things. My husband has several pairs of our prototypes and I told him, “Go beat the hell out of these and tell us how they feel and hold up.”

That way, we get to see firsthand how they wash and wear. Seeing a lot of the PPE that's come in and out of our household over the years, I’m very pleased to say that I’m happy with the results. You do have to take this into consideration. A lot of these individuals are wearing these same pair of pants for at least six months out of the year every day. Sometimes, they're wearing them for 14 to 21 days at a time and then they're getting them to be laundered.

I told them, “Do everything you can with this. I want you to try to destroy them because we need to know. How do you feel? Do you have any issues with the fit? If so, we want to know.” We want to know the good things and the bad things. That goes for anybody that buys our garments. We've been very transparent and told them, “Let us know.” It's great to know if you're saying, “I love this. This fits better than anything I’ve ever had.” That’s awesome but tell us what you don't like too because that's where we can improve and move forward with our designs.

That whole feedback thing too. There's only one way you're going to make yourself better as a company, a product, or a human even if it's constructive feedback. I used to be into B2C marketing and my bosses would come to me. I was pretty high up in the chain of command there. I was a director of marketing at a previous company. They'd scour the internet for looking for shitty reviews. I’m like, “Why are you guys getting upset about this? This is a golden opportunity.” If you get a shitty review, that's only giving you room for improvement.

If someone is truly pissed off about something, you have an opportunity there to make it right, not only with them but for further people down the road. Even with trying to break it, go out and thrash these pants. Destroy them. You can have the data to back up your improvements. That's a huge thing. How are you going to get better unless you have those criticisms or that feedback, positive or negative?

That's what's put us in a good spot. Even though we wished we would be able to launch our product earlier than we were able to, we did have about five years of research and development before we launched something. In the past few years since we've had something on the market, we've been able to make these tweaks to a product that had already been tested, worn, and destroyed out in the field. They're trying to destroy it. We've had a lot of amazing feedback to be able to get to where we are. Even though it has been longer than we hoped, we're in a good spot to be able to offer something incredible that the end user needs.

It's important to point out that a lot of people don't realize that even the sizing is dictated by the NFPA standards. We've talked abound that a little bit. Nomex, fabrics, threads, and all that are dictated as well, which makes total sense. You want to have safe fabrics out there but the sizing is dictated in this standard, which is not in most other standards. It's very open to interpretation and other standards. It's not in this one.

That's important for people to realize that another reason there's been such a delay in getting great fitting items is that if you want to have it certified by the NFPA, then you have to follow that sizing, which isn't good sizing. We've been fortunate to be able to partner with NC State and FSU over the past several years as their top-tier research universities. We've been collaborating with them on testing in different areas, specifically women in Wildland and women in fire to come up with the best sizing and fit. We've got another project with them that we're working on. We’re excited to have all of this at our fingertips that nobody else has access to.

You guys give a shit. That's what it boils down to. I get it, though. I’m not trying to say that to disparage anybody else out there in manufacturing. There are plenty of good companies and stuff like that but when you have a small almost boutique manufacturing process where you can dial in and focus on a smaller community, your data into your product is going to be a little bit better.

The economy and volume play into the effect. If you're having this stuff vastly manufactured to pump out so much PPE per year for X amount of firefighters, you're going to make some sacrifices. It sucks. That's where you have the ability to pivot. You have that corporate agility. I hate using corporate because you're a small business but you know what I mean. You have that agility to pivot and change things rapidly.

That is a benefit that we have.

Although going through all of the protocols in terms of the size chart, I did take a look here. There are roughly twenty total measurements. They're giving very specific measurements of what they want for these items. Summer is our technical designer and honing in on all of those. It does create restrictions on everything. Also, a lot of things that have been discussed in the years past at meetings is innovation. Fabric manufacturers are able to take advantage of technology. They're looking closer at the fabrics and trying to create these fabrics that have more breathability and are more comfortable to wear for longer days. There's been nothing put into the sizing.

If you have these great fabrics but you still have a poor fit, you're still going to have an uncomfortable garment to be wearing. That's something that Summer was saying. Partnering with Florida State University and North Carolina State University is beneficial for us. One thing even better is they've approached us. We were like, “We want to work with these top-tier universities.” Having them approach us and ask us about things does make us feel like subject matter experts.

If you have these great fabrics but you still have a poor fit, you're still going to have an uncomfortable garment to be wearing.

Some days, it's like, “We're putting shit out there.” People are like, “Who are you? You're the new kids on the block.” It’s great but we do have backgrounds in this and knowledge. Between both of our skillsets, college degrees, my husband being in fire for so long, and knowing this community, anybody that's fire realizes it's a tight-knit close community. It seems like it's very large but in the grand scheme of things, it's a very small community. People know.

This is about them. It's not about us. Our biggest thing is why we're always looking to improve. It’s because Summer and I don't have to wear these every day for sixteen hours at a time. To be honest, I put our stuff on and I immediately want to take it off but that's not my job. It's about them. If we don't listen to feedback, present this to committees, and bring it to the attention of other individuals, then we're sitting here doing nothing. In a way, this has turned into a much bigger thing than we thought it would be than making garments and putting them out there.

We had become advocates. When we had these focus groups, we did have multiple individuals tell us, “Thanks for listening and at least trying.” If it doesn't go, at least we knew somebody tried and we appreciate that. At that point in time, for us, that was enough. We couldn't stop there but we have one individual, in particular, tell us, “I was on a shot crew.” As many people know, it's a twenty-person crew. She was the only female. She showed up to work with nineteen other individuals, all male.

She said, “Even if they would've given me an inkling of something to feel more like I was a part of the group and it would have been like, ‘Here's a uniform that fits for you, made for you, and not made for me,’ I would've felt so much better.” She's a very strong-willed woman and did amazing. Also, it's very intimidating. That's something that I don't think is thought about much in this culture because it is male-dominated. A lot of these men don't stop to think, “If I showed up to a 20-person crew and I was the only male, there were 19 women and they told me to put on a uniform that was made for a woman, how would that make me feel?”

It'd probably suck. I hate to break it to you but there's a significant difference in biology like build, shape, and size between men and women. I’ll 100% say that until the end of my days. If I were to wear women's specific clothing, it's going to suck. I’m not going to be able to have the mobility that I need, PPE-wise. I’m not going to be able to have the breathability in the right places. It's different. You mentioned something that you're heavily involved in the community. Both of you have a vested interest in this. Your husband is a Wildland Firefighter. Summer, I believe you said your son is a Wildland Firefighter as well.

I have a lot of family. It's mostly in a structure fire that my family is in. A lot of them need a wooey type of stuff. We're being able to help with that aspect as well.

I was at the Rip-N-Lips event when that happened. When I was at the Rip-N-Lips event, I noticed that you were supporting the community and the Wildland Firefighter Foundation by donating some auction items there. You get it. A lot of folks out there look past that. They look past the community component of what it means to be a Wildland Firefighter PPE provider, a boot provider, X, Y, and Z brass, nozzles, hose, everything. Kudos to you because it gets lost, especially when you get too big.

That is another benefit of us being this little boutique brand. Hopefully, we will grow. We are introducing men's. We are having men buy our women's uniforms because they're fitting them better than the stuff on the market for men. Seeing that men also need a better-fitting uniform, we had to approach that as well. Being able to talk with the people at all the different conventions and stuff that we go to and the different things that we donate to, these people are badasses. These women are badasses. They've been wearing men’s uniforms and doing this job with ill-fitting stuff and not complaining. They're out there doing it because they didn't have any options. Being able to offer something to them so they can perform their job better has been awesome.

You got to look good doing it. There's nothing like a good-fitting suit on a guy and a good-fitting dress on a woman. We can’t incorporate that into our professional clothing.

The big thing is you all travel internationally and represent a Federal agency and the United States. Our Army and Navy Armed Forces don't show up and look frumpy. We have gotten slammed for this. We're not saying you need to be wearing X, Y, and Z and look a certain way but you do feel better if you look good and feel comfortable. Also, if you look professional. I’m sorry but some of these photos that I see floating around the internet with this agency, some of the uniforms don't look professional. It's across the board from somebody that's out digging line. If you're talking to the media and the community and if there's a fire, those individuals that are up in front of people talking are throwing on yellow.

They're having these press conferences. You are representing yourself in an agency. In the beginning, we said we wanted to help to redesign and come up with something different. We got scoffed out a lot and told, “You want to make women's asses look better on the line?” No, I’m sorry. That's not the point of this. Our backgrounds are in apparel design and merchandising so that's not our goal. This is not about us or making something that it's not but you have got to have a uniform that moves with you and doesn't fight against you.

Across the board, men and women tell us, “My crotch hangs down so low down on my knees and I have to hike my pants up,” because if you don't, you step over a log or you're going out of steep, you're ripping out your crotch. That's super great. That's not the goal and what's being misunderstood. What we are trying to do is not that at all. It's a certain mindset but the people that like it, 100% get it. The goal is to get these individuals in something that will move with them and create something more comfortable because it's already an uncomfortable job to do.

That's the whole thing too. I’m glad you brought that up because I was trying to allude to the fact that a suit is a professional article of clothing. It's a fancy thing and a dress, whether it's a pants suit or some business attire for women. It's professional looking. It's also flattering looking but it's not designed to make your ass look good. There's a time and a place for that.

If you're going to go clubbing in Vegas, I still want to look fly. I want to look good, especially trying to attract a mate but there's a time and place for it, and the line is not that place. I get it. However, if you look like you have professionally well-fitting attire, then you're going to command respect based on your appearance. To anybody who's going to say otherwise, I call bullshit.

If you feel good and comfortable, you are going to work better, work harder and work up to the potential that you can do instead of having to fight your uniform constantly.

This is for the firefighters reading but for the men and women you've seen on the line working, they’re constantly adjusting themselves or doing the stretch. We all know what the stretch is, especially with dudes. You only do one thing if you're doing that thing where you lift your knee high. It's all because of the clothing. At the end of the day, you're having to hike your pants up because the crotch is too low.

If you were to try and step over a log, you're going to fall on your ass or blow out the crotch. If you don't have reinforcements in the ass where your fire shelter is rubbing against your Nomex, it's wearing a hole. You're tearing through stuff. It's like, “What's the point of this? This might as well be thrown away.” I digress. Thank you for allowing me to be on my soapbox.

The majority of firefighters that are out there aren't thinking that they want to look a certain way. I’ve seen plenty of crews that are doing things to their uniforms that are not NFPA 1977 compliant. They want to stand out. Adding different things or taking away certain things on their uniforms and wearing them a certain way, then they're identified as part of whatever crew or module that they're on. I’ve seen plenty of it.

Once it's made of spec, awesome. After that, it's out of our control. Summer and I were not trying to go against the grain. We're trying to work with the committee as much as we can and work with top-tier universities to try and do everything the right way but also at the same time, try to move it forward a little bit quicker.

You mentioned the standout thing. Who throws a patch on their yellow? A crew patch on their yellow. Let's be honest with ourselves. I’ve worn both uniforms for DOI so I’ve worn the pickle suit for the Forest Service and it is not professional looking. I’m sorry but Forest Service, get your shit together. There are very oddly specific rules for wearing that uniform. You're not allowed to polish your brass and bugles if you wear them. You're not allowed to do anything to your name tag.

You're supposed to have everything prim proper. There are measurements between the seam and your name tag. It gets crazy but the uniform still looks like shit at the end of the day. The pants suck. They're a kite. The shirts are made for somebody who is not a tactical athlete, let's say that. You have the DOI side where you have their version of the pickle suit where it's all brown. Everything is ridiculously tight. Do what they call the pants for the DOI? They call them stranglers.

I haven't been through the academy. I’ve got cadre at the academy and I’ve had to wear both of these uniforms. It's not fun, especially when you're sitting in a classroom and you got your ass kicked from a PT and you're trying not to fall asleep. The next thing you know, you're getting an atomic wedge for your pants. It sucks. When you're not on the line and you have to do a public appearance, say you're a PIO or something like that, you have to wear your PPE still. If you have something that commands a little bit more professionalism in your attire, you're going to be much more well-received, especially by the public.

In the past years, we've seen some movement forward in getting some sizing changed in the NFPA standards here in the States. Also, Canada approached us and asked if we would help them come up with sizing for their women because they didn't have any women's sizing either. They only had men's and their men's stuff is very ill-fitting as well. They wanted to move forward. They heard about us when they were looking around for somebody to help them out so they approached us. We were able to help Canada come up with women's sizing to help move them forward. They're in wear trials with some of that sizing. It's been a long eight years but there's some movement forward and it's exciting to be on this end of it.

That's a community element that I’m talking about too. You give a shit about the community at the end of the day. I was looking through a lot of the specs and the buildouts for some of your PPE and clothing. You have a lot of things that people have always wanted to be built into their clothes like an IRPG pocket or Velcro that doesn't take a shit on you three days into the assignment. You've taken notes from the field and implemented that into your designs. That's got to be greatly appreciated by the folks that are wearing it out there on the daily.

I hope so because we put a lot of time and surveys into this, lots of measurements and prototypes that were terrible in the beginning to work through all the kinks and iron it out to what we needed. I hope that they appreciate it. We hear a lot of great feedback from that staff. I hope they like it.

Here's a question for both of you. Have you thought about doing mission-specific stuff? There are men and women jumpers out there. There are men and women helitack, repellers, PIOs, and timber. The list goes on.

We want to do it all but we're so small. To be able to have that bandwidth and hold that inventory, we can't afford to do that on many different days. That is the goal. A lot of the time when Summer is talking to the manufacturer about all of the additional design attributes that we included, she'll come back to me and say, “Korena, can we please take away this pocket? Can we please take away this or this?” I’ll tell her no because that's fewer things that they have to sell. It drives down the cost of manufacturing for us. At the same time, it's not something that we can sacrifice because we figure if we're going to do it, we want to do it well.

We want to knock it out of the park. Here's a handful of the bells and whistles that we can give you of your creature comforts and the things that you want. We did try to listen to the end users in terms of what they want for design attributes and what they're needing to use their uniforms for and put it into one. The goal is, as we grow, we will be able to offer something for helitack and jumpers and be able to fit everybody's needs. We would be able to carry five units in each category. It's not feasible for us to do that.

We’re looking at the biggest bang for your buck and what we can do. We went to a conference and have a line come up and say, “I love this. This pocket is in the wrong place for me.” We said, “We love that you love it. If you want, we can work with you in terms of trying to find different pockets.” Now, that's not something we can do. We have a local and we could take it but it would be a one-off. There are individuals out there doing one-offs but that's not something we're looking at doing because we can't reach as many people that way and being able to provide that. We like to do it all. We'll see if we'll get to that point. That's on the bucket list.

It sucks too. Owning a business, you got to make sacrifices. It's like, “This is not going to be cost-effective. This is going to be reckless potentially or damaging to the future development and growth of a company to be successful.” Fortunately, you have to make those sacrifices. That's a thing that not a lot of small business owners talk about, the long hours and the sacrifices you have to make in product and out of necessity. It's like, “What is the biggest bang for the buck that can reach the most people at the widest variety at the best time?” It’s hard. I don't know if you two beat yourselves up over that and not being able to make a specific need fit because it's a one-off. Sometimes that sucks. It hurts.

It's been hard having to do that constant balance of trying to give the best price so people can afford this great-fitting uniform because they need it. They don't have super giant incomes. We're trying to give the lowest price that we can for everybody to afford it. By balancing the attributes, we want to give everybody the fit. Even the fit is so different from what the manufacturers are making. They can't throw it into their normal line.

They have to stop their line to do our stuff. That costs them money. We have to have these large enough orders for it to make sense and they have to be purse-style. If we have a bunch of different styles, that's thousands per style that we have to do at the manufacturers. Eventually, that is our goal. That constant daily balance, fighting ourselves over things, and me pleading with Korena like, “Can we maybe change this a little bit so I can get the price down,” has been nuts. Hopefully, we can keep producing and give the end user what they're needing.

As long as people are happy with it. I also think that not losing sight of why you did this as well and explaining that we have an investment within the community. Our loved ones and friends are firefighters. We're going to practice what we preach but there's going to be limitations. We can't give you a brick of gold, unfortunately. We'd love to but that's the reality of it. As far as some of the features and the text specs, let's talk about some of the standout features of the shirts and the pants that you manufacture rather than somebody else's.

First of all, our sizing is the biggest thing that stands out because we did go outside of the regulated sizing that they have in the standard. Our women's uniform is built for a woman and it follows the average contours of a woman. We’re taking into consideration different parts like the thighs because this is a heavy hiking industry. You can't follow the normal industry sizing for these things. We were fortunate enough to get lots of measurements and stuff early on to see the changes that we needed to make. The sizing is the biggest thing and taking into consideration the thighs. For our shirts, we have different attributes that allow for movement.

With your arms to go forward, that's not going to pull tight across your back. Even lifting your arms over your head, we have different attributes that are going to help with that without pulling your shirt out. You can move your arms in all directions and still be able to have the movement and range of motion that you need without your shirt pulling on you, getting tight on you, or pulling out of your pants because they're supposed to be tucked in. We do have some great pockets that are an appropriate size and location for a woman.

A lot of the other pockets that they've had are too big and cumbersome. Everything gets lost in them. We've separated ours. In that, we have a specific drop pocket behind the chest pocket that we use that your IRPG or phone can slide in right behind the chest pocket, which is helpful to keep stuff separated as you need to maybe access a phone, a map, or something much quicker. You don't have to dig around in a pocket for it.

On our pants, we have some similar types of pockets. We do have that drop pocket on the pants right behind the cargo pocket which is great for the IRPG, maps, phones, or something like that for quick access. The pockets are in a great location for you to reach down and be able to reach right into your pocket. It's not located down on your knee like a lot of them are and happens for a long time. It doesn't make sense to have cargo pockets on your knee. You fill them up with a bunch of stuff that you're needing, bending, and squatting at your knee. It bounces around and it doesn't make sense. Ours is up on the thigh where it should be so you can have good access to it.

We do have great articulation in our knees for range of motion without having that hot fabric pulling tight across your skin whenever you're needing to hike or bend. We do have a great specific gusset that we've made specifically for this industry that isn't going to pull and tear as quickly as a different type of gusset. It's not going to chafe as well because your thighs are going to be rubbing together. You don't want extra seams and stuff there to affect and hinder that. In the pants, it's the sizing and the shaping that we do as well because a lot of the stuff on the market is a flat, straight fit. It’s like they're wearing a box of fabric.

A lot of the stuff on the market now is a flat, straight fit. It’s like wearing a box of fabric.

You might as well be wearing it for a lap sack.

Most of them feel like they are so we've added all this shaping to be able to fit you and work with you instead of against you.

It’s putting those features in there to where you're not constantly chafing. You have the breathability too at the same time. That's a rise, correct?

Yes. The rise is the crotch area. Rise sounds better than crotch.

We're a bunch of knuckle-draggers. We got to use common language here but the rise or the crotch of the pants is one of the biggest gripes and bitches that I hear from both men and women out there. To have a different gusset, is it the gusset design itself, or is it materials, fabrics, and the way you sew it to where it's stronger and it doesn't bunch up, ride high, or get caught on something? When you go to step over that log thing, we were talking about don't fall on your ass, what makes that so special?

It's the design and the shape of it. We're still using all the same fabrics that need to be used in this. It's the design and the placement of where we put everything.

I’m assuming it’s going to be different placements for men and women.

It's not a huge difference. Their rise is going to be longer in the men's because they have more stuff to put in there than women do but the shaping of the gusset is similar because it's made more for this type of movement and motion. A lot of gussets in men's pants are not necessarily for hiking, bending, squatting, and all this type of stuff. Ours is for room and movement.

I used to be in the tactical industry. That's as far as I’m going to go with that one. If you've ever worn tactical clothing, something from combat pants or 511 where it's very purpose-driven, did you draw some inspiration between the tactical application and the athleticism of military operator folks and the similarities that they have for Wildland Firefighters? Did you incorporate some of those things like, “That's a great idea,” and then pick and choose or do you have to do all this stuff on your own and come up with it by yourself?

The great thing about apparel design is that everyone is copying everyone at some point. There's not a lot of new stuff under the sun with it. Korena and I studied a lot of different military and ACUs, hiking, and types of outdoor like motorcycle riding. Studying all of their uniforms, how they move, and what type of attributes are in their uniforms that allow them to move that way. At that point, we picked and choose. I then was able to put it all together, design it, and make it work.

The great thing about apparel design is that everyone is copying everyone at some point.

It's trying to take all these things and then get them into the NFPA 1977 governing doctrine. It's got to be a pain in the ass.

It hasn't been awesome or easy but it's been worthwhile.

As far as future things that are going into Green Buffalow, where do you guys see yourselves here? Are you getting any future developments or anything that you're working on? Any game-changing stuff that you care to share?

If FSU, the next phase of their project, goes through, that's what Summer had mentioned that we would be partnering with them on. Maybe not everybody knows what they're doing but they've already done one phase. They request a grant and take a look at women, specifically fire structures and wild band, and uniforms in terms of how they fit. They've gone 3D body scanning, taken a bunch of measurements, and collected that data to put it all in there.

They are doing what we were doing as well in terms of surveys, focus groups, asking questions, and asking the end user because that's what it comes down to. They're compiling all of this information. They would like to gather more anthropometric data, which is scanning the body and getting more measurements of women's bodies in different areas. What we would be a part of in this next phase is taking a closer look at that, either spinning off of what we have or creating something different to match up with what this data is coming back with.

It's exciting for us because we feel that with our designs, that's the direction we've gone. We just didn't have the capability of 3D body scanning. Being able to work with them, go back to the drawing board, take a look at wherever we can make improvements, build better, and find deficits in our staff is huge. We're not saying that we're going to fit everybody. No. It's another option. If we can create this for individuals that don't have anything, that's great. For us to be able to get a small part of the market to help them, that's what we're hopeful for.

Thus far, that's what we've been able to do. It's my son that's doing his first year in fire a season and I sent him with a pair of pants. He'll probably read this. He's looking at me and doesn't want to show up and have these pants that Mom sent him with. I was like, “They'll issue you some and you see how they fit and everything.” I talked to him and he said, “I got my shirt and pants.” He didn't say too much else. They went out cutting and that evening, he talked to us and said, “I wore those pants that you gave me and they fit so much better. They're way more comfortable.” He's tall and slim. I said, “I don't want to toot my horn but give it a try and do what you feel most comfortable in.”

That was a great moment to hear. My nineteen-year-old will let me know if I mess up. Anything that I’ve done wrong, it's inappropriate or whatever he doesn't like, he'll make sure to tell me. I feel like it was a genuine pat on the back. Kudos to what Mom and Summer had been doing. That was a great feeling because he’s one of my biggest critics and I greatly appreciate that from him. Hearing that made me feel good. Summer talked about all the design attributes that we did but the sizing and the design attributes, all of those work together. One wouldn't function the way that it does without the other.

The sizing and the design attributes work together. One wouldn't function the way that it does without the other.

We made sure to be very cognizant of her choices. I can't tell you how many times we put a pack on. Summer is our fit model. She gets to put everything on all of our prototyping her size because it's the most average size that we're finding for a lot of the women that we're speaking with. We tell her, “Put this pack on. What does this feel like?” We try to be very aware of the placement of everything because you have layers throughout this garment.

Be mindful of how your pack is going to sit on your hips. You’re going to have your pack belt, regular belt, waistband, and all of these extra layers to cause points of pressure, chafing, rubbing, bleeding, and all of these horrible things that we're hearing these individuals have. We're not saying that you still may not end up with it but we did try to be very mindful because it's a very physically taxing job. At the end of the day, after you've worked sixteen hours, who knows where that pack is sitting?

There's a lot to be said about that too, like the amount of thought and effort that goes into it. You also have a human living mannequin in your company. That's convenient. There are two things that firefighters hate, in general. It doesn't matter if you're wild or structured. They hate change and the way things are. However, everybody bitches about how their back hurts, chafed by their PPE, their boots suck, or some little bitch and gripes. I’m a firm believer that if you're happy and comfortable while doing one of the most uncomfortable jobs arguably out there, you're going to save yourself a lot of bitching in the future and a lot of pain.

Some customers of ours are trying to convince their friends that are in Wildland to wear our stuff and they're like, “No. I’m going to wear my normal stuff. It's fine.” They're like, “Please, try it.” They'll go try it after they're swearing that they're not going to like it because it's different and this change that they don't want or didn't know that they needed. After they wear it on the line, they come back and say, “This is so amazing. We didn't know we needed this until we had it.” That's a lot of stuff we're trying to be advocates for as well. We know that they don't love change but sometimes you need it when you don't realize that you do.

The infamous graph of eff around and find out sometimes, there's a point of that intersection where you find out and then you change your ways. I think of it as being open-minded and receptive to change. You have to eff around a lot less. That's only a cost to your comfort. These stupid little cultural insecurities or preconceived notions that Wildland Firefighters have is ridiculous. I encourage everybody to be a little bit more open-minded and try new shit because if you don't, how are you going to know?

That's what I told Summer in the very beginning because she wasn't as familiar with this community. She said, “Let's do this.” I said, “That sounds like a great idea but we can't do that.” She'd say, “Why?” I said, “It's got to be a little bit different but not too different. It's got to be enough to hook them and give it a try. It can be a little bit different but it needs to look the same.” She look at me, nod her head, roll her eyes, and said, “You're not letting me do what I want to do.” I said, “I know but we can still incorporate all of these things. We have to go into it very gingerly and present this.”

In the grand scheme of things, whenever individuals are wearing these uniforms, I don't know how many, at the end of the day, are thinking about their uniforms. There's so much stuff going on. The goal is you don't have to think about it. A lot of people have told us, “I don't sit and think that my uniform is so much more comfortable. At the end of the day, I realize I wasn't tugging on it.” You're out there doing so many other things. There are so many hazards and you have to be on point all the time. This needs to be something that feels like you're going to go and it's one less thing to worry about. That's the hope and the goal with everything as we move forward.

Taking that constructive criticism and being able to hone in on that because we don't need people singing our praises. That part of it is nice but that's not what it's about. It's about you being more comfortable in the job that you're trying to perform. Living with two individuals that are in fire, I want them thinking about bigger things than my pants riding up and bothering me or my crotch hanging between my knees and things like that. You need to be paying attention to bigger things than that.

It's like coming home at night. The last thing you want to be doing is fiddling with your pants and missing something. Bringing it back to the whole change thing too and being so used to being uncomfortable, both of you probably heard the phrase “embrace the suck.” We have a selfish culture that's ingrained into us and it doesn't have to be like that. You two are leading the charge there, especially in the PD game. It doesn't have to suck all the time. You don't have to embrace the suck. Make the changes where you can.

Look at this amazing job. Not a lot of people love their job. The individuals that I know that are still on fire love their job. How many people get to say that? Do you have to embrace the suck on some things? In everything, something is going to suck no matter what industry you're in but let it make it suck a little less.

In everything, something is going to suck no matter what industry you're in, but let it make it suck a little less.

That should be our new tagline.

Empowering your people to suck a little less. This situation sucks a little less. That's for sure. It's interesting. I always love having small business owners on the show to discuss this because I’m a small business owner too. It's cool to see the different varying perspectives of each one of you. The thoughtfulness and connectedness to the community that you pour into this is some of your very intimate work. These are the people that you care about that you're making this stuff for. Kudos to you. It's awesome.

Thank you. We appreciate that. It is like a baby. In the beginning, we thought, “We've done this thing.” We like it and then we have to put it out there. “We can't put it out there because people are going to see.” “Wasn't that why we're doing it?” It's this weird mindset that we had gotten into. No matter what, at the end of the day, it's not about us. It's about the firefighters. We've had a lot of bumps along the way and we're working through them as small business owners. It does help to have a business partner to lean into during those times because it seems like we both freak out at different points at times.

We can talk the other one down off the ledge. That's always helpful. I don’t know if it's always going to be that way but it's nice to have. We are still working through some things and the manufacturing is a big piece of it because these individuals that we can partner with and we want to establish a partnership with are looking at wanting thousands of units. We hope we get there. To start, we can't do that. We've had lag times in shipping, which hasn't been ideal. As a consumer myself, I feel that. We're doing the very best that we can. We try to always be transparent with our customers and anybody that we're working with. We’re trying to move forward as organically, successfully, and efficiently as we can.

It's a whole product triangle. You have fast, speed, affordability, and quality. Pick two.

It's true. You can't have all three. We’re trying to balance that as best we can which we've done with everything in our business so far. From coming up with our designs to how we got our name and lots of different things, we've had to balance the whole time.

It's hard too. It's the unspoken thing that every entrepreneur goes through. There's a lot of stuff that we have to do as small business owners and so much so. I call this the fucking thing. Hear me out.

I like it so far.

You know how things are going a little bit too easy and there's not a curve ball out of left field because you're waiting for something to come along and fuck it all up. I call that the fucking thing. Sometimes, I find myself in that. Feel free to take that one with you. I’m sure you've experienced it.

I’m going to support using that. I like it.

You know what I’m talking about though. It’s that anxiety state.

We have that often. We'll put that right there with our marketer. She’s cute. She had told us, “I have a folder on my desktop. Summer, you probably remember the name because you were going to make a folder.” There are all of these good things that she keeps in that folder. On shitty days, she goes in there and picks something that's going to make her smile. I feel like on the days where fucking thing is happening, that would be a good folder to pull up. I do like that. That's great. We probably will be using that more frequently than not. Unfortunately, I don’t know if that's a good thing to have to use that so frequently.

At least there's a good term for it.

I love it. You should coin that.

I can't take credit for that one. That was one of my buddies, Eric. He's been in fine dining. He's done all of it. He's an amazing chef. I’ve known him since high school and he came up with that. The first person I heard it from was him. Working in a kitchen, he's all constantly waiting for that.

I can imagine.

Granted that clothing manufacturing, PPE, and dealing with NFPA standards is a lot different than being in a kitchen or the fire line.

That is all stressful in its accord.

It'd be fair to say that the manufacturing piece is in a sense comfortable to fire. You never know what's going to happen. You have all these plans in place, the weather can change, and all of those things. One thing people don't realize for us anyhow in Green Buffalow is we come up with the designs and we have a manufacturer that we work with. Once we send it to the manufacturer, it's out of our hands and out of our control.

That's the one thing that does suck. We can't control any of that. All we can do is say, “We apologize for the delay. We appreciate your patience.” At the end of the day, that sometimes isn't enough. As a consumer, we always look at that standpoint as well but that's something that, as we move forward, we are trying to mitigate because it's tough. If we don't have a great partnership with a manufacturer, which each manufacturer we've worked with has been great but also things happen.

Once we get our groove and have those larger numbers, we'll be able to hit those timelines we want. At a certain point, things are out of our hands and it does stink to have to send those emails. We do try to make sure that we let everybody know because it falls on us. We want to be open and upfront with everybody so that they know that something might happen. We're working on it. We're doing the very best that we can.

The thing is you're not feeding people a line of bullshit to cover up for things that are outside of your control. That's where companies will typically lose me. It’s the lack of transparency or the obvious white lie that I can tell you're full of shit. I’ll still deal with it but it takes a hit to your reputation.

It does. All we can do is accept full responsibility, look at it where we must move forward, and do something different in the future.

All we can do is accept full responsibility, look at it where you must move forward, and do something different in the future.

There's such a thing as failing forward. With any business, if you don't make a couple of failures, hopefully, they're not catastrophic to where you have to fold up shop or anything like that. If you haven't made those little failures or succession of them, what are you doing? How are you learning? How are you getting better? You have to fail forward to improve.

The very first prototype that we did, we thought it was going to be spot-on and perfect. We found this local dude to make it for us and thought it was going to be amazing but it was horrible. The guy didn't do what we asked him to. It wasn't even close to the specs that we made so we went through several rounds of those to be able to come up with what we have. We could have thrown in the hat and been like, “This sucks. We're done.” You have to live, learn, and keep going forward. Hopefully, we can continue doing that.

That transparency thing too. It’s owning that. It's not necessarily within your control. It was still a fuck up. You still failed but you failed forward. That's out of your control. Is it a failure? I don't know. You tell me. From my perspective, looking back at my first iteration of episodes, those things sucked. They're terrible. That's part of the deal. That's how you get better. There's a lot to be said.

The people that are close to Wildland Firefighters and have a vested interest in it share a very similar resilience. Being an entrepreneur, in a tech startup, or any of that stuff takes resilience, determination, and a lot of hardship to endure. A lot of violent firefighters out there are considering starting a business and I’m like, “Being a hotshot crew or an engine crew, it's a perfect training regimen for being an entrepreneur, working in a tech startup, or something that's high-stress and very demanding. You're going to succeed so don't sell yourself shorts out there.” Look at you two.

Thanks. That's great advice for everybody. It takes a lot of resilience, long hours, arguing, and figuring out the best way forward.

One question I do have for Green Buffalow. Why did you come up with the name like this? I got to know this. In the back of my mind, I’m like, “Ask it.” What's the story behind the name Green Buffalow? I know we dramatically shifted gears.

I’ll let Summer tell you because she loves to tell a story any chance that she gets. I’ll let her share that with you.

I do. It's one of my favorite parts of our business. When we were first starting, we were getting ready to go to an event but we didn't have a name yet. We're researching because we needed to have business cards and stuff to pass out at this event. We hopped upon the first documented wildland fire in the states and it's in a Lewis and Clark Journal in 1804. It states that a mother threw a green buffalow hide over her son to protect him from the approaching wildfire. After the fire passed, the green buffalow hide was lifted and the boy was unharmed. Even the grass around him was green and untouched by the fire.

We saw that and we’re like, “It's a historical document. It relates so well to Wildland. It makes such a great story.” We knew that had to be our name. In the journal, they spelled buffalo with W at the end. They spell it phonetically. We went ahead and kept that to keep the history alive and be able to tell the story accurately like it is in the journal. We kept that W in there. If you look at our logo, you'll see a mirror image of the boy whose life was saved by that green buffalow hide. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Isn't that cool?

That's cool.

We had a great graphic design team that we worked with from the very beginning that helped make our logo come alive and match the story of what we had.

That's so rad. That's a little piece of history built into your logo and your name. That's pretty cool. Nicely done.

Our logo is our first baby.

You can see it in the logo. For those folks that want to check it out, you'll see it. Once you see it, you can't unsee it.

It's funny because when they showed it to us, we thought, “This is a buffalo we weren't even thinking of. We were thinking of an entire buffalo profile and all of these things. That's cool.” Neither one of us saw the boy’s face and they told us to take a look. We couldn't unsee it. I can't even see and follow anymore. I can only see his face.

Getting back into the PPE thing, let's talk about how we can get ahold of you, where we can find you, and some basic questions for people that are interested in trying your stuff out. It's www.GreenBuffalow.com. Do you guys have an Instagram, Facebook, and all that jazz?

We do. We have Instagram and Facebook. With the traffic over there, we haven't had time to put a lot into that. We go in spurts and we're trying to do better but if we have something exciting coming up, we'll let people know that way. We're a party of two and we have a marketer that we contract when we're doing bigger things. We wear a lot of hats and try to keep up with everything if something slips. If you also reach out to us on the website, there's an email, Hello@GreenBuffalow.com. If there are any questions, you can reach out for general questions or inquiries. Those get answered by me. If you have questions about sizing, those get answered by Summer.

We try to keep those a little bit separate from our personal emails so then we can keep them straight and know who we're responding to. You can reach us there. You can send us a DM. We try to check those as frequently as possible. Those are the best ways. If you're passing through Fort Collins and you're interested in trying something on, we have run into a handful of people that want to try something on or they purchase it because we're finding a lot of individuals.

If they don't get sizing help, they order either way too big or way too small because they're used to the way things fit. One of our big things is to send us some measurements. Summer takes a look and she'll put size. It's comparable to what you are wearing and sizing like that. We've added extra room for the activity that's being done in this garment. Anytime anybody has any questions, feel free to reach out. We're here most days.

Our handle on our social media is @GreenBuffalowLTD in case anyone wants to check it out.

As far as the folks that are looking to do this on a, say a Gov card or an agency purchase card, do you guys have the ability to do that as well?

We do and we've done several.

That answers my question. If you're allowed to do it for a station, you can do bulk ordering as well?

Yes, we can. The biggest thing is bulk ordering. We're trying to hone in on our numbers as we mentioned with the inventory. There may be a little more of a wait time but we're trying to get more on a schedule to where things are deliverable in the spring and at the end of the fiscal year, or things like that so that we can rotate and have the inventory heavy when purchases are made. We can do anything but we need a little heads-up. We may not have it readily available but able to figure some things out. We've done several of that and been able to work through them.

That's the whole transparency thing that we're talking about. At least you're honest and upfront with people. You didn't say that out loud so the people will be pissed. Forgetting to say it, people get pissed and be like, “I ordered this a month ago. Where the heck is it?” I get it with the whole supply chain and the management thing, especially when it comes to anticipating your quantities of orders.

You have an MOQ, Minimum Order Quantity. Not a lot of people know that. When I’m ordering stickers for the show, it's egregiously expensive because I’m only doing runs of all the designs combined, 500 total. Each one of those is broken up into 250 or 100. It dramatically rises in cost. If you could do it all at once, you're not going to go bankrupt. I get it. It's hard but at least you have the courage to admit it, say it, hold it, and be accountable for it. It's good so it's worth the wait.

It is. We launched in 2020 with a product, even though we've been a business for several years working with the NFPA. We signed a contract with our manufacturer the first week in March 2020. That's the worst time in history to have ever launched anything. Talk about supply chain issues, we've been dealing with them since the second we started. Things are starting to get better but there's still a lot of disruption in manufacturing with that type of stuff. We're still expanding our manufacturing as much as we can and finding great partners to be able to work through to have the best timing that we can.

It'll get better. Hopefully, it does. I know a lot of manufacturers. It doesn't matter what industry you're in, clothing is, especially hard hit. This is PPE. This is outside of consumer goods but consumer goods in general. They're still playing catch-up. Do you only have one retail outlet that you can come up here in Fort Collins to come over and check out?

We were working with a distributor, keeping up with their needs and our needs. We were so excited to get our stuff out there so we're like, “Here you go.” Managing that inventory when they needed to reorder, we were pulling from what our inventory was. We had decided to pull back a little bit. It's just us but as soon as we decide to go that route, we'll make sure that everybody knows that you can purchase it, not only through us but other places as well.

The scale manufacturing with problems that go with that as well takes a lot logistically. I have no doubt in my mind that you're going to knock it out of the park. Talking to you two has been awesome.

Thanks. We appreciate that.

I hope that you flourish. It's hard to find genuine people like that.

Thank you. We appreciate that. I do want to say thank you to all the individuals that are on our website. A lot of people may not know but those are all individuals that fight fire or have fought fire, whether it was their rookie year, maybe their twentieth season in fire, or whatever it may be. That's another thing that a lot of individuals don't realize because we have their support and that means the world to us. We can't thank them enough. That's huge for us and our models. Wildland Firefighters is pretty epic for us. That was what we wanted because we were scrambling at the last minute. When we took some of those images, it was in March of 2020 right before everything shut down.

It was weird because we went to this photo shoot and we thought, “Should we stand next to each other? Can we even give you a hug? Can we tell you thank you?” It was an awkward time but I have to say thank you to them. Thanks to our families for all of their support in terms of what they've dealt with. I know Summer's husband gets it. It's different perspectives. My husband is like, “You're in it for the long haul. You can do it.” I know Summer tells her husband, “Six more months.” We're 8 more years down the road and I’ll tell him 6 more months.

The support for them has huge. We're thankful because we wouldn't have been able to move forward with them and individuals like you. We've met a lot of great people along the way. It's taken a bit to find our community within this community because it wasn't always so easy. We didn't do this to be liked by competitors. To be able to be cordial is nice. We have that with some of them. It's about the individuals.

To say that we were welcomed in this industry, we were not. We weren't coming in here saying, “This is the way it should be done. It should be done our way.” We were trying to give an option and help when we saw that they needed something. We're very thankful for the individuals we've met along the way because it's made the embrace of the suck much easier to deal with.

If you have the support of the fire family, you're making a lot of moves and you're far ahead as you are. If you can get the support of a very borderline xenophobic culture in general and get their adoption and respect, that speaks volumes. It's hard to get. It's also easy to lose it.

It works both ways.

Keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate both of you being on the show and giving a little bit of a deep dive, not only the business component of Green Buffalow but also the tech, what your mission is, and having that conversation to explain the why. It's very lost. A lot of people out there are like, “I see X. I want that X thing.” With Wildland Firefighters, it's very different. I appreciate what you're doing and I hope you do blow it out of the park here.

Thank you. We appreciate that.

Last but not least, I do know that you have a little bit of facts about the NFPA and the 1977. Let's get into that real quick as the last little conversational facts because this is going to be blowing some people's minds, especially some newer people that didn't know this. The whole 1977 thing behind the NFPA, give us some facts.

We talked about 1977. A lot of individuals look at that and think, “These standards have been around since the ‘70s.” That is incorrect. They started working on this standard in April 1989. That's when this was established. It's been around for quite some time. There have been gradual changes but not significant changes in this standard. If you think about it, we talked about the fit and it being flat. People talk about being flat.

It is what it is. This flat fit for a straight individual has no curves, nothing. I know a lot of people are built that way but by thinking about how much technology has come along, we can do better and make more options available. In Somerset, we're seeing those leaps and bounds in the committee and them wanting to make the changes. It's exciting to see. These standards have been around for quite some time.

By thinking about how much technology has come along, we can do better and we can make more options available.

Anybody can go online and submit complaints or requests to the NFPA committee for Wildland. It's a hard system to maneuver. It took us a long time. We had to have some mentors help us to figure it out. A lot of the issue as well as why things were so slow is because people didn't know that they did have a voice and place to where they could go and say, “My uniform is fitting terribly. It's causing chafing and bleeding.” There is a place where they can go and talk about this. Those legally all have to be read during the committee meetings that they have.

Every single one of the comments has to be talked about and discussed. That's how we got started. We started submitting comments that they had to read at the meetings and then we started going to the meetings while they were reading our comments and then doing presentations. That's what got us started in working with the NFPA but everyone does have a voice. If there's something that you're needing or something wrong with any gear that you have, you can reach out to the NFPA committee and get it attended to.

It can change. You got to provide comments and be an active participant in that whole thing to drive change. 1977 is not a year. It's a CFR code. It's legal jargon. A lot of people don’t know that. I want to say thank you both again. The last thing on the show, I usually give an opportunity to give shout-outs to homies, heroes, or mentors. With that, we're going to be closing the show. Take it away, Summer. Homies, heroes, or mentors, whom do you got for us?

All of the fit models that we've had, helping me specifically from my end have been incredible. It’s all the models that were on our website, I would mess up their names. It’s a short recall. My brain is going to be fried. They have been incredible in helping me with everything that they're needing from the sizing. Where do they put their tampons? In their pack, uniform, or IRPG, or if they chew. It’s all of that type of stuff that you don't necessarily think about and the tiny little details that I would pick their brain about.

They were generous enough to give me their time to tell me all of those things. That's been incredible. Mystery Ranch has been helpful to us and we partnered with them, Alex and Ben, not too long ago. Hearing everything that they're doing and the advocacy that they do as well has been inspiring. It's been incredible to work with them as well.

They're making some moves over there. There's another little thing. It's like, “How big is your pocket purse, man purse, or whatever you want to call it?” It's this big or it could be one of the flat ones. It's a little shit that matters. Korena, who do you got for us?

I don't want to disclose their names but there is one individual that was with the US Forest Service and we would always agree to disagree. He's retired but he was very key in a lot of the things that we learned. He always picked up my phone call and answered my emails. I’m very grateful for that because being able to tie in with those individuals is very important to what we're doing. Another individual that when I first met him, he was with Cal Fire. He moved on to IAAF and is doing great things. He took us under his wing and supported everything as Green Buffalow and individuals stand for. What we are looking to do, he understood our voice in terms of that exactly, and what we were wanting to do instead of dictating.

There's a huge difference between wanting to do something and wanting to help. It is perceived as dictating. We're not trying to do that at all. He was backing and supporting us, and being a friendly face in a room of individuals where it's a little intimidating. You get up there. You don't know any of these individuals. You start speaking and telling them this stuff. It's all stuff that they know but we also have that background of support on what we're presenting. Without those individuals, we wouldn't be at the point that we are. I’m very grateful for them and their help. Whether or not we agreed, we could always joke. Having that support meant a lot moving forward for us.

It's a loving culture but it's also a hard one. There's also something important to be said about that. If someone is not disagreeing with you or giving you a little bit of shit every once in a while, it probably means that they don't like you. It's important.

That's what we would tell ourselves after we stopped crying at the end of the day. Those individuals didn't have to pick up or respond any time that I felt like I was bugging the hell out of them. Believe me, I did. One of them even told me, “I’ll take a look at your stuff but I don't think you'll be back.” I said, “Okay. Thanks.”

That’s brutal honesty. That's awesome.

I thought, “I appreciate that.” We're always learning. Summer and I say we love to learn so I hope that never stops because doing what we're doing, we're continuously learning things.

There's that old adage, “The day that you have learned everything about something or you stop learning about something, it's probably the day you should stop that activity,” whatever it is. Summer and Korena, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate the hell of it.

Thanks so much.

Thank you for having us.

Right on. Take care. Thank you.

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Ladies and gentlemen, there we go. Another episode is in the books with Summer and Korena from Green Buffalow. I want to say this is awesome. I appreciate you guys swinging by and showing us a little bit of insight into the PPE industry that we wear every day. I also want to thank you for changing the game and trying to change the future, not only from the fit, style, and tech perspective but also from an NFPA regulation perspective. That takes a lot of work and your efforts will not go unrecognized. Once again, thank you.

If anybody wants to find out about more Green Buffalow, go over to www.GreenBuffalow.com. You can check out both men's and women's specific fit greens. You can even get yellows. They have different types of Nomex and tech-safe. They have a bunch of stuff. It's all very competitively priced. It's one of those things. If you want to try something new, try it out. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you got to make that decision for yourself. Whatever works for you, works for you. I’m not going to judge.

As for the rest of you, I hope everybody is doing well and gearing up for the season. Stay sane, more or less. It's been slow. If the fuels cure out, it's a matter of when. Hopefully, we'll get some action and nobody goes too stir-crazy here soon. Stay safe out there. Special shout-out to our sponsors. We've got Mystery Ranch doing good work with the Backbone Series. If you want to go over there and check out more, go over to www.MysteryRanch.com. We've got Hotshot Brewery. It's kickass coffee for a kickass cause. Go over to www.HotshotBrewing.com and get all of your stuff with a proper warning.

We also got the A.S.S. Movement. My buddy Booze over there is spreading the good word about bearing your turd. Go over to www.TheFireWild.com. and check out the A.S.S. Movement where you can save 10% off your entire order with the code ANCHORPOINTASS10 at checkout. Last but not least, we've got the American Wildfire Experience. Bethany has a kickass organization over there and you should go check it out. That is all located over at www.WildFire-Experience.org. You all know the drill. Stay safe. Stay savage. Peace.

Important Links

• Wildland Firefighter Foundation

• Mystery Ranch

• Hotshot Brewery

• American Wildfire Experience

• Green Buffalow

• C.O.O.L

• Rip-N-Lips

• Instagram – Green Buffalow

• Facebook – Green Buffalow

• www.TheFireWild.com

About Korena Hallam

Korena is the mom of two boys and the wife of a Wildland firefighter. Being a fire wife for over 20 years has given her a front row seat to the Wildland industry and a deep appreciation for those who find it their calling. It’s also provided a unique view of what was missing and the daily struggles many have with their uniforms; seeing individuals doing physically taxing jobs and wearing ill-fitting uniforms just did not make sense to her. With a background in apparel merchandising and design and working in different facets of the industry for over a decade, Korena loves the design process and connecting with the customers. Green Buffalow was a way to give back to those she appreciates and to put her passion to work.

About Summer Hurd

Summer has been in the apparel design industry for over 15 years and considers co-founding Green Buffalow to be a dream come true and one of her proudest achievements. Summer has had the opportunity to work across many different areas in the apparel industry which provided her a solid foundation and wide knowledge of how it all works together from sketch to final product and everything in between. Being married and a mom of four keeps Summer busy, especially with a big passion for the outdoors — from mountain hikes, bike rides, camping, walks, swimming and skiing. She likes to get her family outside as much as possible to enjoy the beauty of nature.