ABOUT METZGER & SONS

By day, Justin A. Metzger is a mild-mannered PR guy for a Milwaukee-based trade association. By night, he is the father to 3 sons, husband to 1 wife (natch), and wrangler of 2 dogs and 2 cats (Kya was too shy to be pictured).

Metzger grew up all over the Midwest (primarily in Bloomington, Illinois and Racine, Wisconsin), picked up a couple degrees along the way (BA from Illinois State University, MA from Indiana University, go Redbirds and Hoosiers!), and has come to realize the Midwest is a pretty special place.

Back around 2015, Metzger was asked to design a shirt for a charity run in Milwaukee. It was that ask that inspired him to create the first “Milwaukee Skyline Squared” shirt design, in order to maximize how much of the city’s skyline he could fit on the printable space on the shirt.

At that event, several participants mentioned that he should try selling them, and that they would be popular. Thus the genesis of the idea to create Metzger & Sons.

Because it is, really.

While he could have just set up shop on Amazon or Redbubble or something, Metzger decided he’d prefer to learn how to create an eCommerce site in addition to the shirt designing.

He’s, uh, kind of a glutton for punishment.

Ultimately, however, everything is done here with best practices in mind. We use Square to process payments securely, we use SSL to keep your whole experience private, we use MailChimp to send you an occasional message, and we haven’t figured out how to make your information NOT private, and we don’t plan on doing that anyway, since it wouldn’t be very kind of us.

Ultimately, I can explain that in 2 words: My conscience.

There’s a lot of nastiness in the garment manufacturing business. Sweatshops, child labor, unfair pay, abusive management, etc.

At the end of the day, Metzger really is my name. I put my mark on every design and product I sell. I don’t want to put my name on products made by beaten children in the back of a sweatshop earning $1 or less a day.

By sourcing everything from US-based suppliers, I know there are labor, wage, and safety protections for all the men and women involved in their manufacture. It may not be perfect, but it’s a far sight better than the alternative. Ethics are very important to me.

To learn more about where all our stuff comes from, click here. Long story short, it’s primarily New York, North Carolina, and California.