A crocodile leather belt his father wore for special occasions always caught Jay Green’s eye. His schoolteacher father didn’t wear the belt every day. He wore it to church, to funerals and to weddings.
“When I had been in the car business for a while, I treated myself to a leather belt,” Green said.
Green worked in car sales for 17 years. He was the general manager at McKenney Salinas Honda for about 10 years. Green was laid off Nov. 24, 2008, as recession took hold of the automotive industry. He worked for a putter company until a rainy day when he came up with a new business idea. He decided he’d go into the leather business. The Ashbrook graduate didn’t know how he’d do it, but he knew he wanted to try.
Green launched Piedmont Leather Co. in August 2009. “We had a purpose, but we didn’t have a plan. Literally, it was a rain-day decision to start the leather business,” Green said. “The last year and a half we really made some strides. In the last 18 months, we’ve grown.” Green started off selling cash covers, a small wallet that can hold a few cards and some cash. He now sells 700 to 1,000 cash covers a year and 700 to 800 leather belts a year.
Piedmont Leather’s physical office is at the New Hope Small Business Center off South New Hope Road in Gastonia. The business focuses on e-commerce rather than a retail location. Green has an office manager but he’s pretty much a one-man shop. He works with golf courses to provide leather belts to their members, orders the belts, checks them out to make sure they’ve been made to the right specifications and ships them to his customers. A business in Texas takes the dried leather, dyes it and turns it into a belt.
The belts Green sells aren’t the kind a person would find at a local retail store. Green has anaconda, crocodile, alligator, stingray, python and lizard belts dyed in a rainbow of colors. Everything is custom-made, from the type of leather to the color. “With a niche product like this, it doesn’t appeal to everybody,” Green said. “Gaston County’s not known for people that wear snake belts, but we’re trying to change that.”
A well-made leather belt that’s taken care of can last 25 to 30 years, he said. Green doesn’t want to have a retail store. Anyone who wants to check out his products can stop by the office, but Green would rather keep the business online and be in the “green grass markets” of golf courses. He expects to see steady growth in the leather industry. “As long as crocodiles and lizards keep growing, we’re going to be OK,” Green said.
You can reach Amanda Memrick at 704-869-1839 or twitter.com/AmandaMemrick.