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Business & Tech

On the Job: They've Stitched Together a New Adventure

Vickie and Vern Ray, owners of TCB Embroidery, have learned about the joys (and stresses) of running their own shop in the two years since they bought it.

Vickie and Vern Ray go about their business every day at , quietly working to ensure that customers are getting exactly what they want.

They put logos and name tags on company shirts and hats, they stitch names into team or school uniforms and jackets and they’ll even do small orders, putting a baby’s name on a blanket or a monogram on new towels.

Sometimes the days and weeks can be long and the stresses of running a small business can seem overwhelming.

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Says Vickie, who bought the shop with her husband, Vern, two years ago: “This is the hardest I’ve ever worked in my life.”

Yet there are times when they get rewards they never expected. The joy and appreciation some customers show when they pick up a completed project can make their day.

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“That’s one of the things with what we do,” says Vickie. “People are excited to get their product. We’re not working for the IRS here. People are happy to be here and they’re excited to see their garments.

“This Christmas we did a job for a gal who had designed her company’s logo and when she picked it up she was so excited she was literally jumping up and down and dancing. It just doesn’t get any better than that.”

‘A scary step’

TCB Embroidery has been at its current location on Carlton Hills Boulevard in Santee since 1994. Vickie started working there two years later.

Vickie, who’s worked in embroidery for about 25 years, was happy working at TCB for an owner she liked and admired. She would have been perfectly happy staying in her role, working as office manager, doing embroidery and handling whatever her boss needed.

But when he needed to sell the business two years ago, Vickie and Vern decided to buy it. That was in January of 2010.

“That was a big, scary step,” says Vickie, 53. “But we’re still here, we’re still paying the bills. If we can ride this out, we’ll be OK.”

Since taking over TCB, the Rays, who live in Santee, have been working as a two-person team. It’s just the two of them in their big shop, Vickie up front to greet people as they come in and Vern usually in back at the embroidering machine.

Vern, 54, had worked for years in printing and bookbinding in the San Diego area, but made the move when they had the opportunity to buy the business.

“We talked, we prayed and we agonized,” says Vickie about the decision to take it over.

At first, it was a steep learning curve for Vern, particularly with the shop’s two embroidering machines. The big one in the back is a complicated, intimidating-looking machine that can embroider six garments at a time and handles the bulk of TCB’s big orders.

But, Vern brought an eye for design and layout from his years in printing, and Vickie – with her years in the business – was able to help him, too.

“It’s more or less a new career,” says Vern, who smiles and points to his wife when he’s asked how they divide up the work.

“It’s 90/10,” he says, laughing, crediting his wife with working with the customers, doing all the paperwork and using her years of expertise.

“He does production,” answers Vickie. “I haven’t let him in on the secret yet that it’s all his work that makes the money.”

There’s no by-hand embroidery done at TCB. Each project is produced on the machines, which can use computer programs and digital images to reproduce logos, names, designs and art work – in a variety of thread colors -- on clothing, hats, promotional items or keepsakes. The shop has hundreds of clients, including schools, teams and businesses, mostly from the East County.

Their work varies. As Vickie says, every project is different and every garment provides a new palette.

“It’s not an exact art,” she says.

In December, business will pick up as customers want names stitched into Christmas stockings and gifts. And, throughout the year, they do big orders for companies, who need hundreds of items. Several times each year, for instance, they embroider new logos onto the shirts of employees who work at San Diego’s Air and Space Museum to reflect the changing exhibits there.

The most unusual request Vickie has ever handled came about 10 years ago when a man wanted to make the tattoo on his shoulder his business logo.

He provided a picture of it (a tribal-style sun design), TCB digitized it and created exactly what he wanted.

“He loved it,” she says.

Togetherness

Vickie, who grew up in Casa de Oro, says she’s always been “crafty,” with a desire to be creative artistically. After spending several years in nursing, she said she needed to try something new and fell in love with embroidery.

“The first time I saw an embroidering machine I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it,” she says.

Vern, who grew up in the South Bay, worked for many years for one printing company. On the side, he played bass guitar in a band.

In 2002, they came together through an online dating site, with their first date being right across the street from TCB at a bar where Vern played. They’ve been married seven years, and the two spend much of their time together. They’re either at work,  participating in activities with their church or they’re at Disneyland.

For the Rays it truly is the happiest place on Earth.

“Some people like cruises or going to Europe,” says Vern. “You can find us at Disneyland.”

They make the drive to Anaheim as often as they can, using their annual passes. Sometimes when they close on Fridays they’ll look at each other and decide to go up “to have a date night.” It’s the same on weekends, or the one Monday each month they close the shop to have a three-day weekend together. Disneyland, here they come.

The transition to owning and operating their business – taking it over during tough economic times – did bring new stresses to their lives.

Always before, Vickie and Vern just went to work, did their jobs and went home. Now? They worry about everything.

Yet they say owning TCB is rewarding.

“It is,” says Vickie. “Now we’re two years into it. The first year, I don’t know if I would have said that it was (rewarding). It was a lot of adjustment, a lot of learning, a lot more responsibility than I was used to carrying.

“But yeah, at the end of the second year I can say that it’s been worth it. And we have the best customers in the world.”

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