Shirley Williams is the factory manager at our plant in Tylertown, Mississippi. Red Land Cotton chose to place its factory in Tylertown almost entirely because of Shirley, her talent and experience. 

Shirley's story can be an inspiration to all of us. She is a mother and a business professional in a world that is largely dominated by men. She is a force to be reconned with and that force has been sharpened through years of hard work — work that required her to be gone from her family for months at a time.

She raised a family with her husbands help (as almost all of us business women do) while traveling the world setting up sewing factories. 

Her testimony is a first hand account of how and why textiles left the United States. Shirley's passport is full of stamps for China, Cambodia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. Along with those stamps come countless stories of the heartache and poverty she found in those locations. The cheap labor was the motivation for these companies along with complicit governments allowing their people to be used in the name of economic growth. 

Shirley's story is one of perseverance, love of family and devotion to her work. We are so incredibly thankful for her work and leadership in our Tylertown plant. She has taught us so much and we continue to learn from her. We hope you get just as much inspiration as we do from hearing her story.