Combat Flip Flops fights the good fight in war-ravaged regions
By Martin Vilaboy
Having served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan as Army Rangers, the founders of Combat Flip Flops witnessed more than their share of human suffering and human-caused affliction. What has impressed upon them even more about their experiences, however, is what they’ve seen in terms of the human spirit and its resilience.
When civilian life brought former Army captain Matthew “Griff” Griffin back to Afghanistan in 2009, about three years after completing his military service, the changes that took place in that relatively short time seemed almost unreal. Kabul streets felt safer, says Griffin; entrepreneurs had popped up all around creating prosperity.
It was still, of course, a war-torn region. Yet despite the destruction and disadvantages, “businesses were thriving in areas that I thought couldn’t recover,” says Griffin.
While back in Kabul, Griffin met a former Marine captain who was helping to run a factory that made combat boots. Much to his surprise, Griffin found the factor to be clean, efficient and modernized. Having already been through one mission to bring democracy and freedom to a region, Griffin at that point decided the path to prosperity was better laid with business rather than bullets. In other words, if you want to spread freedom and peace, combat poverty and the seeds of division, “Bring entrepreneurs, not soldiers,” he says.
So Griffin called up Donald Lee, his old radioman from the Ranger Regiment, and a mission was born. Its primary objective: manufacture peace by nurturing manufacturing and export businesses in war-ravaged and post-conflict regions.
“We understand what entrepreneurs do for communities, how they grow and develop economies,” says Griffin. “If we can foster that in these areas, it’s going to grow because some kid will watch his mom or neighbor take one of these factories and crush it. Then he might say, ‘You know, I am going to do the same thing.’”
The first phase of the operation, not surprisingly, was Afghanistan at the combat boot factory, where Griffin, Lee and a third partner, Andy Sewrey, set up shop to build Combat Flip Flops. As one would expect, things got tricky right away. After all, a business created with the expressed purpose of diving head-on into some of the most dangerous and economically challenged areas in the world is bound to face some serious obstacles.
First, there were quality issues on early runs, and company leaders didn’t want to produce just any sandals; they wanted to change expectations by proving that “badass product,” if given the chance, could be produced in these highly stressed environments. The team tried another factory, but as troops began their withdraw, military orders dried up, and the flip flop business alone wasn’t’ able to carry the factory’s overhead. What’s more, once the military contracts disappeared, so did the existing footwear supply channel.
“Afghanistan doesn’t have the ability to make the raw materials, so everything has to be imported,” explains Griffin. “We found for our business model to work, we need to use existing manufacturing capabilities within the countries in which we produce. If we try to bring in a new technology, new machinery or requirements that are outside of current capacity, we are not going to succeed.”
Sadly, the battle to make sandals in their former fighting fields would have to be put on hold, but the overall war was not over. As Griffin says, Combat Flip Flops is about “fighting the long fight,” so its founders looked into other products and other post-conflict regions around the world.
Last year, CFF found even more than it was looking for in Columbia. In Bogota, the company has partnered with a manufacturer known for producing high-end leather footwear that could produce its line of flip flops sourced within five miles from cow to finished product.
“Our quality grades are through the roof,” says Griffin. “We have had one return in two complete production runs, for small defects.”
And due largely to a free trade agreement with Columbia and the lack of tariffs, production costs are competitive with more traditional manufacturing countries, including “to the penny of what we can make them for in China and at 15,000 volumes,” says Griffin.
Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan, CFF was introduced by an aid organization to a women-owned factory in Kabul that was making curtains and uniforms for the growing hospitality and service industry in the area. “We asked if they could make a sarong for us, and they knocked it out of the park,” says Griffin.
Each handmade sarong takes 10 hours to make, and no two are completely alike. “They are just spectacular,” continues Griffin. Even better, 10 percent of the profits from the sarong business is donated to Aid for Afghanistan Education, a program created by factory owner, Hassina Sherjan, that builds schools for young women and girls who were marginalized under Taliban rule.
“Hassina is my personal hero,” says Griffin.
Elsewhere, many miles away in Laos, rural residents still suffer the effects of a war from decades past. As it turns out, some 270 million bombs were dropped on Laos by the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. More than 85 million of those mines still lie in the earth unexploded. Locals detonate the bombs – typically without proper protocol and safety measures – in order to farm the land, graze animals or simply to collect the scrap metal to melt down into everyday utensils.
As might be expected, these unregulated detonations often lead to accidental deaths. To help combat this problem, Griffin and his partners are working with local artisans in Laos to make bracelets from the scraps of bombs and mines detonated properly. CFF then donates money from each bracelet sold to safely clear three square meters of “unexploded ordnance” in the region, effectively saving lives while creating economic opportunity.
“I dropped plenty of bombs out of airplanes,” he says. “I feel personally responsible, even though it was generations before me, to clean this stuff up,” says Griffin, “because I have seen what happens when a kid picks up a live round.”
Indeed, it’s certainly a tough business, the plan Combat Flip Flops has chosen, but after a few years fighting in the trenches, and now that sandal production has stabilized in Bogota, the company feels it’s ready to make some real noise in the names of its many causes.
As for the original project, CFF hasn’t given up on manufacturing in Kabul, and there might be an opportunity in Afghani cashmere on the horizon. For now, however, the team is mostly focused on improving existing operations in the several countries it operates – including producing in the USA – and growing what it already has going.
CFF also plans on putting an effort into broadcasting its message a bit louder.
“You’ll see me jumping out of planes, driving fast bikes; we’re going to have some fun,” says Griffin. “We are going to play, show people what we are capable of doing and help a lot of people in the process.”
And now you understand why former Army Rangers chose the outdoor market to continue their mission of spreading peace and prosperity.
