Entrepreneur dispenses inspiration through socks

John Cawley personifies the expression "knock your socks off" just by virtue of the caffeine-fueled, rapid-fire way he talks and walks, and the 100 push-ups he does every morning.

But the serial entrepreneur from Oreland would prefer you keep your feet covered - by his empowering-message Inspyr Socks.

The world would be a more motivated place, Cawley contends, and his personal message validated: that a life addled by addiction can be salvaged and repurposed in a way that has impact.

"I was able to accomplish all this because of the new life I got back," Cawley, 50, a recovering alcoholic 15 years sober, said at the Wyndmoor headquarters/warehouse of Inspyr Socks L.L.C. "I want people to know anything is possible. I started Inspyr Socks to give back to the life I got back."

He also hopes it will translate to company-sustaining profit.

With product exposure during the first 16 months limited to www.inspyrsocks.com and local weekend events, such as youth basketball games and arts festivals, sock sales - at $14 a pair - now are about $10,000 a month, Cawley said. The company of 10 employees has been breaking even the last six months, he said.

With a subcontracted sales force of 13 preparing to fan out across the country this month, and talks underway with Quest Products Inc. of Wisconsin, a distributor to major retailers in the U.S. and Canada, Cawley projects $12 million in annual sales within three years.

"This is a brand we are very excited to go through the review process with," Megan Russo, e-commerce director at Quest, said in an e-mail.

Such uplifting reaction has been a kick for the man behind the messages on his socks.

"Words do mean something," he stressed.

His Inspyr ideas can be found on the backs of the socks, usually one word per calf: Work-Hard; Earn-It; Pride-Inside; Step-Up, among others.

The feel-good venture began with a contemptuous gesture.

Cawley and his wife, Jo Ann, a math teacher in the Upper Dublin School District, were in Virginia Beach when they saw it: a T-shirt at a souvenir store portraying a New York Giants fan and a Dallas Cowboys fan giving each other the finger.

"There's got to be something better we can put on these T-shirts," Cawley said he told his wife.

The father of children ages 9, 12, and 14 said he called a friend and told him to print "Be Courageous" on five T-shirts, which he took to the Chestnut Hill Arts Festival in spring 2013 to gauge reaction.

Reaction was supportive. So he made more shirts, switching to socks in January 2014 at the urging of kids, Cawley said. Inspyr's top buyers are teenage girls, teenage boys, and mothers.

He opted to put the words on the sock backs to inspire more than just the wearer.

Far from being a teenager, Jerald "Jersey" Brownstein nonetheless had his own experience with that.

The 73-year-old Blue Bell resident was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 21 years ago, rendering him unable to walk without assistance.

Over the Christmas holiday, he spent a week in the hospital with flu and pneumonia, followed by two weeks in a rehabilitation hospital. While there, his friend and an Inspyr investor, Elliot Menkowitz, a Pottstown-area orthopedic surgeon and serial entrepreneur with a sock company of his own, brought Brownstein a pair of Inspyr socks - dark gray with the words Never Quit in red letters.

At 6-foot-1 and wearing shorts, Brownstein said he was a standout in physical therapy, as were his socks. He wears them every weekend.

"Each time I put them on, it's a valuable reinforcement of my life's commitment to never quit," Brownstein said.

Menkowitz got involved in Inspyr in part because of his 10-year-old grandson, Oliver Scheier, who has muscular dystrophy, and the boy's mother, Menkowitz's daughter Mindy Scheier. She has founded Runway of Dreams, a nonprofit in Livingston, N.J., that pushes brands to modify mainstream clothing - such as replacing buttons with magnets - so people with disabilities can wear it.

"His messages are so powerful and uplifting," Menkowitz said of Cawley. The doctor's investment group, Riuscito (Italian for "successful"), holds an equity position in Inspyr.

Still, there was one message Inspyr Socks conveyed that bothered Cawley: that U.S. manufacturing wasn't good enough.

Until January, his socks were being made in South Korea. He has switched to a plant in Croydon, Bucks County.

"The thought occurred to me, he said: 'This message needs to be in America.' "

215-854-2466 @dmastrull