Overland Sheepskin Company has provided customers with American West-inspired outerwear, clothing, and home decor since 1973. They focus on finely-crafted items made from natural materials, including sheepskin, leather, and wool.
Though it all began in Taos, New Mexico, today the family-run company is headquartered right here in Fairfield, Iowa. Originally from Iowa, the Leahy family moved part of their growing business, and eventually their headquarters, to their home state in 1982.
Co-owner Roger Leahy has seen many benefits from having their headquarters and warehouse centrally located in the states — especially with 16 stores in 11 states and a fast-growing online store.
"We ship out of here and a lot of our internet customers are really nationwide," Leahy says. "So we’re shipping from Fairfield, really, to both coasts every day."
Up to 60% of their company sales now come from online and with a 17th store opening in Aspen later this year, they have no plans to slow down.
The company prides itself on doing pretty much everything in-house, providing job opportunities for multiple skill-sets.
"We do our own photography, our own marketing, and our own systems development," Leahy explains. "We have a variety of things happening at Overland."
Leahy encourages anyone interested in some of those areas and others, like customer service, shipping, inventory management, accounting, graphic design, and copywriting, to regularly check their website for job openings.
"There’s a lot of opportunities that we have," Leahy says. "We’re oftentimes recruiting. We offer, what we consider, really competitive wages for this area."
Though they've recruited people from across the country, Leahy enjoys hiring those local to Fairfield.
"Generally, we try to hire locally as much as possible, and we like the people that we have available here in Fairfield and Southeast Iowa," Leahy says. "There are a lot of bright people in Iowa."
After living in New Mexico and a few other states, Leahy is happy with where he is in Fairfield, noting that he would never want to live in a city larger. Here he has everything he needs, without the crowds.
"I just think Iowa’s a good place to live and a good place to grow up," he says. "There’s a good quality of life here."
Leahy has also found the state and Fairfield to be supportive of businesses. In Iowa South, Overland has found a strong labor force and great business consultants.
"It seems to be a pretty pro-business climate in Iowa," Leahy says. "There’s a lot of people who have started businesses in this area."
We're so pleased to have a company like Overland Sheepskin Company headquartered out of Fairfield, providing jobs and superbly crafted goods for our residents.
