Blue Hill Couple Looking to Grow New Eyewear Straps Business
Written by James Straub - Thursday, December 04, 2008



BLUE HILL — They’ve invented a better mousetrap, now Kate and Jeff Wright hope to build a business and create jobs in Blue Hill manufacturing and marketing NexStraps.

Billed as the “next step in eyewear retention,” NexStraps are handmade in the basement rooms of the Wrights’ home on Mountain Road.

Designed by Jeff Wright and made with neoprene, NexStraps offer several advantages over other products worn by extreme sports enthusiasts and others to secure their sunglasses or eyeglasses.

While traditional straps worn to keep glasses from being lost or broken when they fall off are effective only when the glasses fall forward, the design of patented NexStraps saves glasses from the abyss even when they fly off your face and over the back of your head.

Breakaway safety snaps release eyeglasses or sunglasses in certain situations to prevent the possibility of being choked by the strap. In those cases, your glasses would fall, but if they fall into water, they won’t sink because the neoprene strap floats most eyewear.

Kate Wright said the water-resistant neoprene is also more comfortable than materials used in other eyewear retention straps that can feel like a scratchy rope when dry or a soggy scarf when wet.

“NexStraps were created around one simple concept — never lose your eyewear again,” according to the company’s Web site.

“I use mine racing on Atlantics in the summer,” Kate Wright said. “You look up at the sails and you still have your sunglasses.”

NexStraps come with a lifetime guarantee against all manufacturing defects and are marketed as “perfect” for kayaking, fishing, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, climbing, sailing, mountain biking, windsurfing, kite surfing and all water sports.

That Jeff Wright would create a safety net for sunglasses worn by extreme sports enthusiasts is far from coincidence.

A native of California and a seasoned surfer, skier, snowboarder, sailor, kayaker, diver and fisherman, he created the NexStraps design in 2003 after losing another pair of costly sunglasses in the water.

“He came up with it because of surfing and being on the water his whole life and never being able to keep his sunglasses,” said Kate Wright.

She said her husband is fully aware of the benefit of good sunglasses while on the water and in other situations where glare can be debilitating.

Rather than risk losing a pair of expensive sunglasses, people wear cheap ones when participating in sports, Wright said, but that defeats the purpose of wearing sunglasses.

“If people are willing to spend $200 on a pair of sunglasses, they would be willing to spend $10 to not lose them,” she said. “What was out there was not working. All they do is keep you from losing glasses down your face, not from the back of your head.”

Jeff Wright created NexStraps in 2003 and he and Kate launched their business in 2007.

For two years before starting the business, Jeff worked three-to six-month stints in Iraq providing security services to visiting diplomats.

He is highly qualified for the job.

He served in the Marines from 1988 through 1992. After graduating from the University of California Santa Barbara in 1997, he joined the Navy and served as a Navy SEAL from 1998 to 2001.

At 30, he was the oldest member of his Navy SEAL class, a distinction that won him international recognition.

Wright’s portrait graced the cover of the August 1999 Reader’s Digest, which said, “Jeff Wright braves the toughest school on Earth.” The feature article, “Making of An American Warrior,” profiled his SEAL training.

A native of Blue Hill and 1997 graduate of George Stevens Academy, Kate (Wootten) Wright met her future husband in California after she graduated from the University of San Francisco in 2001. They married in 2006 and have an 11-month-old son, William.

Wright saved much of the money he earned in Iraq from 2005 to 2007 to start NexStraps.

Kate Wright said her husband took all of 2007 off to work on the business, but having decided against borrowing money, they knew he would have to return to work sometime.

The time came this year when Wright started working two-month stints in Iraq.

He’s there now, but thanks to modern technology he still sees his family. With Web cams in Iraq and Blue Hill, Wright can watch his son scamper about the living room floor, while the toddler gets a real-time look at his father.

Technology also helps him keep a hand in the growing family business. Kate said she sends business and promotional correspondence to Jeff, who edits the material and sends it back.

The NexStraps product has received rave reviews in magazines and positive testimony from customers.

Side Tracked, a magazine dedicated to kayaking, named NexStraps the best new product under $50 for 2009.

Kate Wright said she can assemble 20 NexStraps an hour, and the business has taken on one part-time employee to help make the straps.

She said they made sure all the materials used in making Nex-Straps come from the United States and they are determined to keep all aspects of the business in Maine.

“Hopefully in another year the business will support us,” she said. “We’d love to be out of the house and into a space where people can come to work. We want to make them in Maine. We want them to be handmade in Maine.

“People can make a decent living making them. We’re here; we’re a part of the community, and we want to employ the people who live here.”

NexStraps are available at Fairwinds Florists in Blue Hill, Ski Rack in Bangor and at 10 independent retail stores in California, or on the Web at nexstraps.com.

Kate Wright said they have focused their marketing mostly on small independent stores because product decisions are made by the owners, who are often willing to try new products.

“With chain stores, you have to go through headquarters,” she said.

Though the task is more challenging, Wright said they would like to land some chain store accounts and recent negotiations with a distributor could help make that happen.