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"We try to be everything to everybody." - Kyle Brown, Director of Operations, Herff Jones (Arcola & Champaign)
Herff Jones is the #1 in the collegiate cap and gown markets, offering rental and keeper gowns, as well as stock colors and customized gowns.
Last week, Illini Prairie CEO toured Herff Jones with Kyle Brown, Director of Operations.
Herff Jones has seen a lot of pivots and adaptations since it began as an emblematic jewelry company in Indianapolis in the 1920s (think class rings, medals, pins, etc.). During WWII, Herff Jones made naval hat pins and pins for the Marines.
Herff Jones has had a presence in Arcola since the 1940s, having bought Collegiate Cap and Gown in 1977. Over the years, Herff Jones has been bought and sold to Carnation, Kraft Foods, and private equity companies.
Sustainability is important to Herff Jones. They use fabric made from recycled plastic bottles, plant trees for graduation frames that are sold, and strive to eliminate waste within the factory. And to eliminate loss and measure the number of uses a gown gets, RFID tags are beginning to be used.
Brown walked us through the factory, as well as the sales structure of Herff Jones representatives. He also walked us through and reviewed several key terms, like profit and loss statements (P&L), balance sheets, capital expenditures (CapEx), operating expenses (OpEx), gross revenue, net revenue, cost of goods sold (COGS), gross profit and EBITDA. One of the key economic terms Brown connected to the actual business of Herff Jones is the Point of Diminishing Returns.
Our tour of Herff Jones also reinforced some concepts we had learned on tours of other area businesses, like 5S, GEMBA boards, and SQDIC.
Thank to you Kyle Brown and Herff Jones for the tour and for spending a morning discussing the business of graduation caps and gowns with us. We're looking forward to wearing ours in just a few short weeks!
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