First let me tell you about our  families Thrill of Victory & our Agony of Defeat, which is what I will call our sales history and then the future for the Veterans.
     Second you will see the game plan we have to create jobs for Veterans no matter what their physical circumstances are!  

                 I'm Jack Powell Jr. and I am the son of an Army Veteran who served at Fort Jackson, also my wife Karen Loftis Powell is from Columbia S.C. and her dad was also at Fort Jackson at the same time during the Korean war. The reason I set this site up was so you can have a better idea of who I and my family are and what we had been through and also accomplished  in the past and what our plans & goals are for the Veterans today and the future.
                 I was born and raised in High Point N.C. the Furniture Capital of the World and  I attended Andrews H.S. that was built 3 years earlier in 1968 to integrate the races & I went the University of South Carolina on a football scholarship in 1974 after they picked me the "Hardest Hitter" in the South. They operated on my lingering knee injury after the first practice and that was basically the beginning and the end of my football career. My wife Karen whom I didn't know at the time was a Cockett with the band, but I didn't meet her until about 15 years later and her parents picked cotton when they were 7 years old.  See the above "Gallery" where you can see a cute photo of me my senior year in high school. Exhibit A.
                Our daughter Caroline whom Caroline's Chair Collection is named after is now 29 years old and she has been a cancer survivor since she was 8 years old. We also have a son named Jackson who is 31 and he is also prepared to help the Veterans no matter what their physical circumstances to learn how to manufacture the children's line first, then the adult sofa's, love seats & chairs and eventually bedrooms and dining rooms.
                First we plan on the Veterans making Caroline's "Vonkey" the Bouncey Veteran Donkey, "Rock'n Rocky" the Veteran Donkey, "Timeout Tina" "Timeout Tommy" "Uptown" Chaise Lounge, "Little Queen Bee" Queen Anne, "Roomie" Rocker, children recliners and more including "My Chair" Rocker which I will discuss soon.
                A little over 40 years ago I was very concerned about the Missing In Action that was caused by the Vietnam war and then I got the idea to make a recliner with camouflage fabric and have a brass MIA emblem made to put on the out side arm of the recliner. Then I contacted the Southeast Asia Support Group in Washington and they were very interested in my promotion to raise money for the MIA's which included helping with the search's for the MIA's and their families. The group wanted me and my attorney to come to Washington and make it all legal, but I couldn't afford to do this and the deal just faded away.   Exh. B.
               Now through my twenties I worked applying vinyl siding, learned how to dance when I was a bouncer at the Capricorn Disco and I also drove a 35 ft. peddling  truck loaded with furniture that I sold factory direct from small factories from High Point to New York. Most furniture peddlers from High Point and next door Thomasville made lots of money because they had multiple lies they would tell people after they walked into their businesses mostly up north where the cost of living was higher and tell them they were making a delivery and the furniture store had gone out of business and they were told to just get rid of this expensive Thomasville Furniture, which it wasn't but it was from Thomasville N.C. It was just cheap furniture with an expensive looking sales tag with high prices and I never made a lot of money like these guys who dropped out of high school but were driving a new Mercedes. Bottom line I wouldn't lie to people then and I don't lie now.
                Fast forward to when I was 34 and married Karen Loftis after meeting her in Columbia and not long after that I created the name and concept Sports Chair and I had a small company in Hickory N.C. lined up to make a  recliner with my fabric that has had a college logo screen printed to it's outside arm. Then I went to see the new South Carolina Gamecocks football coach Sparky Woods and I got him and some players to come out of the stadium after practice to look at my Cockalounger Sports Chair that I had to lift out of the trunk of my car and of course this wasn't your typical corporation approach, but after a meeting with Sparky and his attorney he was going to sit in the Cockalounger during his Sunday Game Show that was televised and people would order through a 1-800 line.  See Exh. C.
               Then during the first game against Duke, Carolina blew a big lead in the second half and Duke scored again the last couple of minutes and then they went for 2 and tied the game up and people were pretty upset. Then Sparky's advisors told him he needed to wait and win a couple of games before he started doing something they have never done before which was selling furniture on their game show and then they lost 3 of the next 4 games, then it faded away....
               Some time later we moved to High Point and spent over a year having more than 200 meetings trying to line up manufacturers like frame makers, foam and fabric weavers including coming back down to South Carolina to get Valdese Weavers (a top 5 company) to sign a contract to weave my NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, College fabrics because I had met with Mark Richardson/Carolina Panthers & Charles Waddell who is now with the S.C. Gamecocks and they agreed to give me ten seconds free during their commercials at halftime to advertise my "Panther Den" Sports Chair that had a 1-800 factory direct sales line that explained how Sports Chair would donate a percentage of the sales price to children programs the Panthers supported during their halftime show. Exh. D, E, F, G.
              Then it became obvious that now I can get a larger manufacturer to make my Sports Chair, but I needed an investor because I couldn't afford this startup and I had asked many friends to invest $50,000 to get the NFL license and some had said if this was such a great idea why hasn't the national companies here in town already done this and of course they were wrong!
             Then I got Bassett Furniture to sign a contract saying they would manufacture my Sports Chair and then just before the High Point International Furniture Market their sales manager tells me that I will have to wait 6 months until the next market before they can sale my Sports Chair because they are going to start promoting that they are going to open their own stores nationwide and selling their own furniture.  See Exh. H.
                   Well that wasn't good for us so I got "Action Recliners" by Lane sales manager agreeing to manufacture my Sports Chair and he wanted me to pitch it to his 110 sales reps and I agreed, but I still had a problem which was I still didn't have the NFL license so I contacted H&H Furniture who already had the colleges & professional team  licenses and the owner Ken Hill agreed to a profit on every yard of fabric used but he had a partner who was also the President of the second largest upholstery manufacturer in the world and Ken wanted his company to manufacture the Sports Chair and I agreed, but I should have known something was wrong when this President wanted me to have the Dallas Cowboy fabric made first for the sample chair instead of the Panther chair that was going to be marketed for free around the world during halftime.   Exh I.  #1. & 2.
                  So I did what he wanted and I had a small company make up the sample chair and then I brought the Dallas Cowboy recliner over to their 100,000 sq. ft. showroom and I also brought my "E-Z Girl" Recliner Collection with me that I just had upholstered which included the "Cottage" "Country Girl" "Uptown" and "Jersey Girl" which was named by the President after he said he wanted them to also be taken to their design department and he said this one would sell good in New Jersey. One of the chair designers there told me they don't even make a chair unless they think they can sell a minimum of 50,000 of them a year. I gave them permission to re-make them from the ground up to get their cost figure.
                  The President agreed to give me a designer fee of 1% for my Sports Chair which was going to be $3.00 per recliner just after I told him about what we had been through to create and get national company's interested enough do this and then we shook hands. Then he said he was really busy preparing for High Points International Furniture Market and would it be OK to have my contract drawn up after the market. I agreed and about 3 weeks later I called the the President from Mt. Pleasant S.C.  where we had moved immediately after our agreement and he first told me that they would not be able to market my E-Z Girl Recliner because of the cost to make her was to high for their intended market and they did really well with my Sports Chair and they also sold the 400 Rhodes Furniture store chain.  Exh J. #1
                  Then I asked when he wanted me to come back up there to sign my contract and he said there wasn't going to be a contract because the stores didn't order my "Style Recliner" which was never discussed because I didn't make recliners they did and that's why he had me to set it up in their recliner section afterwards and it was all about the fabric and that was how I learned first hand about big business with a man who made millions every year. 
                  They also got the same fabric company that I had lined up to make the fabric for them and then I tried to sue them but several attorney's told me your trying to sue the second largest and as of right now you don't know how may chairs they will sale etc. etc. So I sued them in Small Claims Court just to prove this even happened.
                  Now at the same time this was going on before the Furniture Market I bought some lumber, foam, fabric and borrowed a staple gun and made my first chair ever, which was a child's rocker that I eventually called "My Chair" Rocker and I took it over to the Wingate-Monday Company Showroom on High Point's main street which was now all showrooms. Wingate was the worlds largest children's furniture  manufacturer and they agreed to give me $1.00 for every rocker they sold and they had sold over 400,000 the year earlier and My Chair was nicer.  Exh. L.
                  But I had to make another sample with their licensed fabric they exclusively used which was Whinnie the Pooh and was owned by Walt Disney.  Then I had to send it to California for approval and Disney wouldn't let Wingate add my rocker to their license because they already had a rocker on their license??? Wingate's manager said they were the weirdest company they have ever done business with and they would have only made more money with another rocker.
                 Then I got a job at Rhodes Furniture in West Ashley/Charleston and a few weeks later I'm selling my creation of the professional teams by Sports Chair and I told the sales manager in his office that I had a problem with them calling it Sports Chair when I had created the name Sports Chair and he said that's tough because that is what the home office said to do. Exh. M,
                Then I told him; you told us earlier today that there was a new order of living room suites coming in tomorrow and we would have to re-tag them (remove manufacturers warranty tag) and I'm not going to do that because I'm not going to lie to my customers and tell there isn't a manufacturer's warranty just so Rhodes can sell them one, so I'm giving you a 2 week notice that I will be leaving and he said well you can leave right now because your fired. Then he smirkingly pulled out a cigarette and lit it, so I back hand slapped it right from his lips across the room and I said there's no smoking in here, ya know what I mean? Then he got real nice and I laughed and chuckled as I left for good and I sued them in Small Claims Court and they quickly gave me $5,000 so they wouldn't have to appear and repeat this.
              Then my young son Jackson and I tried making My Chair rocker's  on our carport and in a storage unit a couple of different times and Caroline who had been a cancer survivor since she was eight years old sold them on the side of the road with her mother (that's when a little girl ran up and hugged the rocker and said "My Chair") but the time involved for all of us and no internet sales like today and the cost of living in Mt. Pleasant it just wasn't enough profit for it to work and expand.
              Later I approached the Prison Industries office in Columbia and they agreed to allow me to enter the McCormick Prison which was near Charleston so I could begin training the inmates to start fulfilling some accounts I had set up to purchase "My Chair" rocker and unfortunately a few days before I was to go in and get familiar with what was available and what I would need to do this the manager of the prison program had a heart attack and everything was put on hold.  Another reason this was unfortunate was because I had lined things up with the Work Release/Community Programs Pre-Release (Christopher Moran) in Charleston so I could hire them myself but the following happened.
                   So moving on I got involved with the local business development groups in the Charleston area and they were impressed with everything I have told you so far about the former national companies, but they said I didn't have any product orders so I made up 3 samples of My Chair and I sent one to Burlington Coat Factory "Childrens Dept" which was 300 stores and they ordered 2 per store to see how they would do and (this would have been at least a minimum weekly order) then one to a 126 store chain called Welcome Home  out of Wilmington N.C. and they ordered 395 rockers and again would have been a weekly order. The 4 Charleston Walmart stores ordered 18 rockers per store and Adams-Pierce Manufacturing in High Point N.C. who had and also sold to Peddling trucks ordered 100 rockers a week and this was an order for 1,167 rockers and this would have been just the beginning.... an ongoing and growing weekly order.  Exh. O, P. Q, R, S,
                  Then the experts said you don't have a place to make them, so I worked a deal with a man and leased his 110,000 sq. ft. building in North Charleston for 2 months free and no deposit. Then several of these guys came over to see the building and they are looking around and then they said you have a problem with your credit and I told them I told you that in the beginning when all of this began, because when I was trying to get the NFL Sports Chair going and were even  evicted and had lingering problems since then.
                 I told them I was told the SBA would back the loan and I'm trying to hire 25 people the first day and all I was asking to get started with was $25,000 when you and others help companies get millions to hire less people to start then me and if i had good credit why would i be wasting my time jumping through hoops for you guys like this instead of  just going to a bank. (Note; I haven't even shown this one chair of many that I wanted to make and sale at the High Point Market that has over 75,000 store owners in town for a week twice a year to buy furniture) and a matter a fact why don't y'all jump through that hoop right there at the front door, ya know what i mean? Exh.  T. 
                   Also I went into the Jenkins Orphanage home down the street and talked to Deadra Talliaferro who ran it, about some of the older kids (who would have to be supervised) to come into the factory for a couple of hours after we closed so they could clean and sweep the floors and then they could possibly be hired depending on their age and the difficulty of the job. 
                   Also at the same time I had an agreement with Buford Boyd who was a (High Point College Graduate) who ran the Charleston Vocational Rehabilitation in North Charleston to train men & women to make frames for My Chair and eventually other chairs.
                 Now 2  days later I'm sitting in a chair in front of this large building trying to figure what to do and a car drives up and it's Pat Runager the brother of Max Runager a former starting kicker for the Gamecocks  football team and he is the manager of Bassett's Children's Division and I gave him a price and I hadn't told him what had happened and he told me he loved the rocker and the price and when things are up and running he would send me Bassett boxes so i could ship My Chair to their accounts and they would also sale them in their (Note: own factory stores nationwide). This was just another multi million dollar deal again staring me right in the face, but again it faded away because of not enough startup capital.  Exh. U
                Then I was talking to a gentleman who was a part of one of these groups and he told me that these guys want big deals so they can get a feather in there cap and be on TV and I was talking about the homeless, Veterans and work release and they weren't that motivated to help or get involved.
                Years later Gamecock Baseball Coach Ray Tanner is helping a local store market Sports Chairs and the Veterans can manufacture these chairs and we could sell them nationwide and we would sell them wholesale factory direct. Also Rhodes tried to promote the same high prices which caused the marketing promotion to not sale a lot of furniture. Here's an idea  game changer..... NFL, NBA, MLB, College and high school slipcovers because some guys will have wives that don't want a Sports Chair in their living room everyday.  Whewww....  that was a close one.   Exh. V.
               I also drew up a sample and had a Charleston fabric woven in the past and now the Veterans can expand to other multiple subjects for fabrics like Veteran historical sites, famous people, 911, famous resorts or beaches and more. First I contacted Craftex Weavers out of New York who had a showroom in High Point and I gave them my art work and after I received the fabric I drove my van to High Point and bought Martha and George Washington frames, foam and other supplies. Then I stained the frames (mahogany) cut the fabric, cut the foam and more before upholstering them. Then I drove around and sold them to stores that sold this style of chairs. After so many things I had to do before making a wholesale profit of $50.00 that included delivery wasn't enough to grow the company so eventually after selling many across the state I stopped. Exh. W.
              I also got another national company called Microfibers to make me a fabric from art work I sent them for a Sports Chair and since they were eating the thousands of dollars  of startup cost I couldn't complain to much about how they couldn't come up with a good color for the background and that was why I chose what you see in the photo.  I got owner Van Pierce of Adams-Pierce Manufacturing in High Point to make the Collegiate Sports Chair and he said he liked the look and the idea but a lot of store owners may not buy a lot of chairs because the customers may think it would get dirty to easily. Exh. X.
             I drove my van basically all over the state for about a month selling almost every store, but most of the time they would only agree to buy one to see how they would do. Well, I talked to many afterwards and the customers liked the look but not the background and the repeat orders were very few and I stopped because again there wasn't enough profit to expand the business.
             Bottom line, just like at Vans mom & pop factory that he started after he peddled furniture for a few years when he was young and then he had 100's of sofas, love seats and chairs on the floor for the furniture peddlers, local stores and store accounts he SHIPPED to instead of driving around selling one at a time like me which turned out to be almost impossible to do. But the stores did buy, but not the right fabric and the wrong delivery process. The Veterans can make and sale every one of these chairs, sofas and love seats by the millions when sold and delivered properly.
                Looking back I had Bassett,  Lane,  Walmart, Burlington Coat Factory, Wingate-Monday Company, the 2nd largest upholstery manufacturer, Rhodes Furniture,  Valdese Weavers, Home Again, H&H Furniture and the Carolina Panthers wanting to buy, make, promote or sale just one of my chairs when I was just one guy working on a shoestring budget and just imagine what the Veterans could do after we're up and running with enough startup capital which is what I'm proposing to all of your groups throughout the state of South Carolina to help, which leaves 49 more! So hopefully this information I sent you was explanatory enough, if not you may call me at (843)952-4762 or [email protected]. Thanks, Jack
                           PLAN FOR THE VETERANS STARTUP & FUTURE
              The plan for the Veterans is to receive a loan backed by the SBA and Then the Veterans will manufacture and promote our children's furniture, adult sofas, loveseats and chairs and eventually bedrooms and dining rooms nationwide and beginning in Columbia S.C.
               After every delivery of furniture Made in the USA by Veterans there will be more exposure and excitement about how everyone can help us with creating more jobs for the Veterans so we will become the largest furniture manufacturer in the USA. Exh. Y.  Thanks, Jar'n Jack  (843)952-4762  or [email protected]
Now a little bedtime story before you go...
             My dad Big Jack "Stilts" Powell who was born and raised in High Point N.C. the Furniture Capitol of the World led the state in scoring and was All-State in basketball when he was in the 10th grade and Frank McGuire signed him to play for the Tarheels and after serving in the army at Fort Jackson during the Korean war he finished up at High Point College where he made All-State twice and he was the first 2 time YMCA All-American. I have a photo of him on my Facebook after High Point lost to Philadelphia YMCA for the National Championship  by 6 points and he his kneeling on one knee in front of Wilt Chamberlain.
             Now when I was around 15 dad told me about how some 65 year old white haired man 10 years earlier living off of his pension wanted dad to invest his $2,000 he had saved up into his chicken recipe that hadn't been proven to be a great product or even a business could actually be built around it and this dream turned out to be by Colonel Sanders and unfortunately my dad did not invest.
             Last point, and again when I was trying to raise $50,000 to get the NFL license so I could market my NFL Sports Chair a lot of people in High Point N.C. the Furniture Capitol of the World would say if this was such a great idea then the national manufacturers here in town like Bassett Furniture  etc. would have already created  and marketed this Sports Chair, but they were wrong and I was right on the money and that's why I'm betting on the Veterans today, because I'm right again.  Jar'n Jack