I grew up poor.  I didn’t know it at the time because my single mom spoiled me with home-cooked meals and hand-made clothing.  She made a three-piece suit that I wore for my first grade photo.  That’s where the inception of brand GOVAN started:  weekly trips to the fabric store looking through hundreds of material rolls, seeking the perfect look and feel for the suit, slacks, sweater or flat cap that mom would hand make for me.

I attended a prominent, private high school in New England.  The head basketball coach recruited me.  He was the son of a U.S. Chief Justice and ensured us that my straight A’s would be worthy of a high-school scholarship, and that straight A’s at the private school would guarantee a college scholarship.  

I attended an Ivy League college.  There I learned that intelligent people are intelligent because they have the ability to listen and learn from other intelligent people with completely different perspectives.  Where I grew up, that was called arguing and would lead to physical fights and even death.  At Columbia, that was called debate and it was done over a pitcher of beer with friends and plenty of laughter.  I’m still friends with my Columbia crew, and three of them have invested in GOVAN.

It took a couple years to get my foot in the door, but I spent the next 25 years in the corporate sneaker industry:  Reebok, Timberland, New Balance and Nike.  I was fortunate to land an entry-level yet prominent, strategic product role.  The beginning of the end of my career happened my very first week:  so many meetings targeting the “urban” consumer and yet I was always the only color in the room.  I spent the next 25 years climbing up the corporate ladder, trying my best to make positive change, but the last straw was the way my employer and other sneaker brands handled COVID and Black Lives Matter.  While their communication was promising, their action didn’t match their words and their words couldn’t erase what I had already experienced at those brands.  By continuing to work in the industry, I was accepting and settling for the clear inequities that these brands continue to promote today.  So I left.

But I didn’t quit.  Inspired by my time with Congressman John Lewis, I started GOVAN to lead by example.  To celebrate the Black culture that ruled my childhood:  hooping in the park, boom box blaring the latest mixed tape, friends practicing head spins on cardboard squares.  I hope to share those fun memories with you, one elevated step at a time, in the very best sneakers that money can buy.