The Brookside Story...

The place is swarming with flies, thousands and thousands of them, all neatly packaged in tiny boxes, each labeled with the name of the fly and the person who tied it. Names like Tin, Nui, Kwanruan and Somsak. The place is Denver, while the people are in Thailand. Typical American company taking advantage of profitable third-world sweatshop conditions? Not hardly.

Tin and Nui are paraplegic, while Somsak and Kwanruan use crutches to get around. Some of the people live free in the place where they work, a completely handicapped accessible house. Some of the non-handicapped women have been replaced by their husbands with a younger perhaps more attractive wife. For a few, Brookside Flies family ties are stronger than their actual family ties. Jerry Schreiber, founder of Brookside Flies, worked for a long time to combine his need for high volume high quality production and competitive labor costs with a desire to enhance the lives of, rather than exploit, his workers. He long ago realized that his small operation needed the variables that an underemployed work force in a third-world country might offer. Realizing his vision was a long time coming, however, and his efforts began not in Thailand, but in Guatemala.

Jerry started the fly-tying business in his fifties, after careers in real estate and the stock market. He started selling flies, but was so successful he realized he could be producing flies as well. Guatemala, where his original supplier was based, seemed the logical place to go. Jerry started searching for a reasonably priced labor source that could produce flies in the quantity and of the quality he sought.

A church in Evergreen, Colorado learned of Jerry’s plans and asked that he work with an English-speaking minister in a sister church in Guatemala. The elders of the church were eager to learn a skill that would produce income for the community. Jerry packed his suitcase with fly tying materials and flew to the church in Santa Elena to begin setting up the plant. Speaking through the minister, Jerry oversaw the conversion of the church into a fly tying room and began training the elders to tie flies.

Once the training seemed to be going well, Jerry returned home, leaving the payroll and other expense obligations with the minister. He left money in a local bank and explained to the minister what expenses were to be covered from the account in Jerry’s absence.

After several weeks, Jerry returned to Santa Elena to check on the progress of the training. The minister was unavailable. The minister’s mother explained that her son had needed the money Jerry had left for his own use and was now too embarrassed to see Jerry.

Disappointed, but not discouraged, Jerry set out in search of another opportunity. He joined forces with an American in Guatemala who was working with a few fly-tiers in Hue Hue Tenango.

Things were progressing when the opportunity to increase both production and sales occurred. A Rotary Club in Oakland, California doing charitable work in Guatemala learned of Jerry’s efforts. The club had been sponsoring a remote Mayan village, and they wanted Jerry to go there to teach the women to tie flies. Coincidentally, Jerry had just received a large order from a new customer.

Jerry’s memories of that first trip to the village via jeep are of the exotic beauty of the surroundings and the kindness of the people, rather than the difficulty of the terrain. The treacherous path to the village meandered through a lush rain forest inhabited by a profusion of lovely butterflies.

Jerry hoped to teach the Mayan women to tie one pattern, the one required by his new customer. One of the students learned quickly and well. She became the trainer for a group of one hundred Mayan women. Still looking for ways to assure himself that the women could learn to tie the fly correctly and efficiently, Jerry offered a financial incentive to each one who could tie a perfect fly in 10 minutes or less. Soon all the women could tie perfect flies in the standard time.

Satisfied that the Mayan women led by their new trainer would produce the flies properly, Jerry left the project with his Guatemalan partners and returned to Colorado to await the first shipment of flies. In a few months the flies arrived. Every fly was defective.

In retrospect, the problems were many. None of the workers on site had any fly tying experience. Jerry’s Guatemalan partners were unable to supervise the operation directly, because of the difficulty of traveling to the village, but rather stayed in contact with the village via short wave radio. Essentially, Jerry established his new operation with a group of underprivileged women, but left no experienced person there to guide them through to success. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.

The experience left Jerry disappointed and frustrated. He had lost a large customer as well as his additional source of flies, but fortune intervened again. Through a friend who came from France to Denver for trade shows, Jerry learned of a woman in Thailand who had managed a fly tying operation and was described as an excellent fly-tier.

Jerry flew to Chiang Mai to meet the woman and see if they might be able to work together. This time he took fly tying materials with him and asked the woman to demonstrate her skills.

When he saw the quality of her work, Jerry sadly decided to give up the Guatemalan operation, leaving the fly tying equipment and the materials on hand with his partners in Guatemala, and to concentrate his efforts in Thailand. His fondness for Guatemala and its people continues to this day.

Jerry did not speak Thai and knew no one in Thailand when he began to make arrangements to run a business. He went to the American Embassy in Chiang Mai and asked if they could recommend a lawyer and an accountant who spoke some English.

Both the lawyer and the accountant were physically disabled. The accountant’s husband was a philanthropist who ran an organization to improve the lives of disabled people in northern Thailand. After talking with the sponsor, Jerry agreed to train the physically disabled to tie flies. Though there would be problems, Jerry had finally found a situation that would succeed. Some employees have moved on, but some of the original people he hired are still with him.

This year, as Brookside Flies celebrates 11 years in Chiang Mai, Jerry looks back at the evolution. He has created a business model that satisfies the needs of a small international business and in addition makes a difference in this small corner of the world.

The business has grown slowly and thoughtfully. All Brooksides flies are tied by tiers trained at its facility by Kuhn Chai, a long-term employee and trainer. When new workers are needed the disabled community, as well as women who might otherwise not be able to find work, are all offered the opportunity to participate in Brookside's paid training program.

The general manager of the company is Kuhn Natisree, a single mother raising two girls, who lives on the premises and drives the company motorcycle. She has, over the years working for the company, earned a college degree in Thai language and literature and learned to speak some English in night school. One of the proudest attendants at Khun Natsiree's college graduation was Jerry Schreiber.

Khun Nit, another long time Brookside employee and also a single mother raising two girls, is in charge of the company's quality control. Kuhn Nit's elder daughter is now a pharmacist at a local hospital, having earned her degree while Kuhn Nit worked for Brookside. Kuhn Chai, the company trainer, has worked for Brookside and lived on the premises since her late teens and acknowledges no family other than her Brookside family.

Salaried employees of more than three years have a retirement plan, while pieceworkers of more than three years have a salary guarantee. Two facilities in Chiang Mai provide workspace as well as living quarters for employees.

As the business has grown, Jerry's employees have brought others in need of a place to live and work to the company. While not all employees choose to live on the premises, the option is always available to those who need it. Jerry has arranged the production systems so that other employees, who cannot get into the city each day, can come into town only to pick up work and deliver it, thus offering work to women who would otherwise have no access to an income.

What began as a dream has now become a reality.

Happily for Jerry, optimism and independence are bred in his bones. He sees opportunity in every situation, is rarely daunted, even more rarely, discouraged. What might have stopped others only led Jerry to look for new potential and to revel in the knowledge gained with each attempt.

Brookside Flies believes the quality of the flies produced in its Chiang Mai plant is superior to any mass produced flies available anywhere in the world.  

You can reach Jerry via the Brookside web site at www.brooksideflies.com or you can call him at 1-800-258-6336.