Today we’d like to introduce you to Drew Snarey.
Hi Drew, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I’ve been in law enforcement for 20+ years. 15 as a local Sheriff’s Deputy with Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, then also as a police detective with the Southfield Police Department. In 2016 I left the police department to hire on with the US government as a Special Agent, conducting investigations involving organized crime, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, and firearms trafficking along with various financial crimes that bad actors use to fund these endeavors. The federal government moved my children and I to the Chicago area, but my heart will always be in Detroit and Saginaw, MI, where I was born and raised.
For some time, I had noticed that there was a lack of quality functional fitness clothing out there for American men and women. Also, there was a lack of accessible tactical gear and outdoor equipment easily available to the average citizen and first responders a like. Unless of course, you wanted to go to the national retailers or Amazon.
So, in the spring of 2023, I started researching a functional fitness wear clothing line and how to successfully stand the business up online.
At the end of April 2023, Front Line Gear & Outfitters was born. The company is doing better than I could ever hope at this point in the process. We are currently focusing on functional fitness wear for men and women. But we are working to soon venture into providing tactical wear/equipment and outdoor gear. Stay tuned!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I’ve always been motivated and a self-starter. While things have gone well, one of the daunting tasks for me was developing a website for the company. It was intimidating. But I sat down in mid-April and spent a few days building a website for the company. This took some time because I was learning as I went or on the job so to speak.
So, what took me days to complete with nice aesthetics may have taken someone with knowledge of the subject two to three hours.
But I loved it! I’ve loved the process every step of the way.
I’ve always had a creative mind. But taking the time to learn how to better do design, figure out overhead, sourcing, logistics, and budget has been an incredible journey. I’m glad that I am doing this myself as if I was paying people to do these things for me; I don’t think the journey would be as enjoyable and exciting! It definitely would not be as authentic.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Front Line Gear & Outfitters (FLGO) is a venture put into place by career-long first responders. Our mission for our entire careers has been to serve and help others. We are now moving that mindset into the functional fitness clothing world. We pride ourselves on sourcing top-quality clothing. Even if it means our bottom line is a little less. We want you to come back to find more gear from us. What we don’t want is for you to buy a shirt, hoodie, or joggers that you are excited about, then get it home and find that it fits like a box on you and is unflattering. Or worse, that you wash it once and can no longer wear it because it shrunk to child’s sizing. We are also excited to venture into providing tactical gear for first responders and outdoor gear for outdoor enthusiasts! Our entire careers it has been difficult for us to find quality tactical gear or outdoor equipment for work or play that is easily accessible for purchase online. At FLGO, we want to change that for you, the customer. We want to make things easier, not harder. But it will take time as we want to offer you high-quality merchandise in this arena, not some backpack that we can drop ship and mark it for “sale” at $39.95 even though it’s not worth you spending $10 to use it.
We are also excited to announce that we signed a merchandising contract with Frontline OCR, an Illinois-based obstacle course race. We love some of the clothing options we’ve put together for Frontline OCR. Our belief is that the race may be hard, but your clothing doesn’t have to be, too.
Finally, we can design whatever you need for your business, workout group, church, family event, etc. If you have an idea, we will work with you to source it and design what you want to fit your group’s needs.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
There are a few that we found have been important to the success and growth of FLGO as a company. First is interest. We love doing this. As a company, that speaks volumes. If it’s Saturday night and we’ve worked all week as first responders but need to put together a T-shirt design for a local HS football team, you have to love what you are doing. Otherwise, it won’t get done.
Second is a growth mindset. We have learned as we go here in relation to everything we are doing. From website building to design and budgeting. It’s new territory, and it’s exciting.
Finally, work ethic. We have taken the blue-collar mentality we put forth in serving the community and transferred that to FLGO. We not only want this to succeed, but we are genuinely impassioned about providing quality products to the community. We are willing to put in the work to see that to fruition.
Pricing:
- Most clothing items are priced in the $30 range.
Contact Info:
- Website: frontlinegearout.com
- Instagram: @frontlinegearout
- Facebook: Front Line Gear & Outfitters
