The Weekly - May 5, 2020 - 8

The Pulse
# W E A R E C O M M U N I T Y

Watch the full
#WeAreCommunity
conversation with Lisa
Kondrat by clicking
HERE.

Modified Design

Chaco was able to hop on COVID-19 relief efforts early. By Bevin Wallace
Name: Lisa Kondrat
Company: Chaco
Title: Director of Planning and
Operations for ReChaco
Founded: 1989
Location: Rockford, Michigan

Downlow: In late March, Chaco
shifted the focus of its Michiganbased ReChaco factory from
sandal repairs to producing
face masks and other protective equipment for health care
workers on the front lines of the
COVID-19 pandemic. By sourcing patterns from local healt
care systems and collecting raw
materials from parent company
Wolverine Worldwide, Chaco
was able to put the plan in motion in a matter of days. The
effort is led by ReChaco's director of operations, Lisa Kondrat,
who's been with the company for
almost 20 years.

There's a group of us here at
Chaco, and we have a lot of
friends and family in the medical
field, and we just kind of instantly
saw a need. And so we all got
together and decided one day
we're just going to do this. That's
how it came about. After that, it
was a really quick pivot-how are
we going to stop making shoes
and start making masks?
I sat down and I started making
templates and trying to find raw
materials. I am a sewer, so I had
a bunch of supplies at home. I
brought all that in.
In our warehouse we, have a
bunch of obsolete material from
one of our sister companies,
including like 10,000 shoestrings.
I modified the design a little bit
so we could use the shoestrings
versus trying to get elastic, because that's another thing that's

8 THE WEEKLY / OUTDOOR RETAILER SUMMER 2020

super-hard to find right now.
We're using up those obsolete
materials; that's kind of cool.
On our social media, we said,
'Hey, write letters to the nurses
and doctors, and send them to
us at the Chaco factory, and we'll
put them in the boxes of masks
we send to them.' Today, the mail
came in, and people didn't just
write one letter, they each wrote
like five or six-I mean, and letters
from little kids. The girl on the
line and I were reading them, and
we both got all teary-eyed.
I'm usually a little disconnected
from the people on the line,
because I'm in my office a lot.
But I've really been involved with
this from the very beginning. I go
out and work with them on the
line. It's because I just feel superpassionate about it. I feel a closer
connection to my people.

I think the biggest thing
for me, in all the misery and
people being so afraid, is that
there are still people who are
willing to step forward and do
this kind of thing. It's superheartwarming.
On our website, we said, if you
want to continue to support
us through this, even though
the factory isn't open, continue
placing orders-and people
have really come through. We
really appreciate that, because
that enables us to do this kind
of thing and know that, at the
end of all this, we can bring
back all of the workers and get
them right back up and going.
I think that's the biggest thing-
it gives us light at the end of
the tunnel.
Be safe and sane. That's my
new favorite thing.
https://youtu.be/8RQw3UWSsps
The Weekly - May 5, 2020

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