About Us
Yokwe, current and former Kwaj people! If you don't know me, my name is Tim Ashby and I worked on Kwajalein from 1990 to '93 and then from '97 to 2005. While on my first tour, I realized the only shirts available were the few shirts Macy's sold, Kwaj Rock, and a couple other designs - the big seller being the annual Scuba shirt. That didn't leave you with a lot of options for wearable gifts for your family and friends. In '91, I decided that I wanted to learn the screen-printing process and purchased a very primitive kit that was the original method of printing and also an extremely tough way to print T-Shirts. I made one design for our softball team, the “Pushovers”. I wasn’t happy with the outcome and it was difficult getting all of the supplies to Kwaj. So, as fast as my screen-printing experience started, it ended just as quickly.
While helping a friend sell jewelry at the holiday craft fair in late '92, the booth next to us was selling two styles of T-shirts. I watched Noreen & Scott (I think those were their names) sell a few hundred shirts in four hours. I felt that I had some good island designs floating around in my head and that I should revisit the printing process.
I PCS’d roughly a month later back to Houston, TX. I researched classes for screen-printing and came across an adult education course that taught the basics of the new process using photo emulsion to develop your design on the screen. Soon after, I started working my Kwaj Island Humor designs. Within a couple months I was screen printing my new designs. I printed about a thousand shirts of two designs for the '93 holiday craft fair where I had a couple friends put in for their sales license. Unfortunately, that was right at the time that Johnson Controls lost the bid for the new contract. When that happened, Johnson Controls decided they didn’t want any competition for the next few months and didn’t grant small business licenses’ to my guys selling my garments. This ended up costing me thousands since my buddies could only sell them under the table or on eBay.
I returned to Kwaj in early '97 and started working through the red-tape to have a functional printing business on Kwaj. It took me a couple years before I found the right process due to space constrictions. Once I was set up to screen print and offer the computer generated sublimation transfers, I was a busy busy person for the next six years.
Being the only printer on island, I was kept busy. Over the years, I printed close to 400 designs ranging from Haole Open, Bar Open, Atoll Cup, Golf Tourneys, Fishing Tourneys, Raytheon Safety, Kwaj Olympics, Carlos Christmas shirts, Softball teams, The Criminals, The Barnacles, The PoHo’s, Bowling teams, Team Shortbus, Soccer teams, Water Polo, Chargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, Senior Class, Ebeye Church, Mission Shirts, The Zook’s, Stonefish, Kwajalein Police Department, various departments' shirts, and all of my own designs. At the end of my tour in '04, I was printing sweatshirts, polos, shorts, skirts, bucket hats, caps, tote bags, computer bags and golf towels. Right around 2000, I decided to incorporate some of the Kwaj youth into my process. I was too busy to handle the business and took on some helpers in the afternoons after school and weekends. Over the years some of my crew were Rusty Baker, Kye Ehart, Danny Razook, Jessie Brown, Barry Childers, Amber Banducci, Angela Banducci and Anita Corder. It was a pleasure working with all of them over the years.
I left Kwajalein in December of '05 and have been working at the Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai. I am an Aegis Program Manager/Senior Operations Research Analyst on Aegis Ballistic Missile Department missions. Once I arrived on Kauai I hurriedly tried to put my shop back together. Within 6 months I was printing Kauai Police Department shirts out of my back bedroom while looking for a place for a permanent business. I found the longest tenured highest grossing shirt business for sale. I purchased it and started adding my Kwajalein contacts to the long list of customers. To make a long story short, I was working 12-16 hour days, 7 days a week for two years. I couldn’t handle that any longer and sold the business to concentrate only on my designs for my Kwajstuff.com website and PMRF mission shirts. I currently have two top-of-the-line embroidery machines, the latest and greatest inkjet onto garment computer printer and a primitive screen print machine.
In the next few years, I will have twenty or more designs on everything available to print or sew on. In the coming months we will have all the standards: T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, caps, jackets, and polos. We will also have: robes, skirts, shorts, bucket hats, recycle bags, ladies fitted Tee's, and underwear. I will also have links to my friends sites that sell photos, DVD's, greeting cards, art, etc. One last thing regarding designs, a few years back, I tracked down the infamous Russ Keys. If any of you know Russ, he was on Kwaj off/on for probably four decades and in all of his tours, I don’t think he discarded any of his Kwaj Shirts. I contacted him to see if he would take digital photos of some of his classic designs. He provided me with about 10 old school designs. I will be doing some special edition recreation shirts. Please e-mail me with any of your classic designs.
Thank you for your patronage…
PLEASE FORWARD KWAJ STUFF TO ALL INTERESTED KWAJ FOLK!