SPanchors Aweigh! Two Salve Students Test Business Waters

Two students have made a name for themselves throughout Rhode Island and beyond with their self-owned and operated T-shirt company. What started out as craftily spray-painting logos on shirts in their dorm room as freshmen has turned in a fully developed brand fondly known now as SPanchor Apparel.

Yes, SPanchor. As in spank-er. Get it? The guys kindly take the time to define the company's name on their website, saying it can either refer to the boating term spanker, the extra headsail on a racing or cruising yacht, or simply a spanker, as in one who spanks. However, they go on to say they like to keep the definition open for interpretation for each one of their customers.

Both Ben Aalvik and Matt Maynard, now seniors at Salve Regina, are business minors, while Aalvik is a information systems management major and Maynard is a psychology major. They began selling shirts, originally under the name Epic Shirts, to close friends freshmen year.

The handmade shirts were a hit, and they now ship to about 25 states. As a testament to the virality of SPanchor, Aalvik said he once saw someone wearing a SPanchor sweatshirt in an Arizona airport.

“It's cool running into random people who wear our shirts,” Maynard said. It's even cooler, they both agreed, when a person across the country is spreading their brand name.

Aalvik said he came up with the logo design (SP and an anchor symbol) and decided to change the name from Epic Shirts to SPanchor because it was "more original." The anchor is also Rhode Island's symbol for “hope.”

“It was kind of like a snowball at the top of a hill . . . It just kept growing,” Maynard said. Aalvik said their dorm room turned into a store, where people would just stop by to buy shirts.

While Aalvik created the original design, they both said the design and development process was a collaborative effort between them and friends. Maynard said friends contributed to everything from design ideas, photography of merchandise, modeling and even the slogan.

SPanchor quickly developed from a dorm room operation to a full-fledged business. They stopped spray-painting with stencils and handed off production responsibilities to Cool Air Creations, a Rhode Island screen printing company. Maynard said a marketing professor encouraged him to pitch their line to local stores as part of a class project.

“Some brought up because it was our target market. I made a phone call and got in touch with the buyer,” Maynard said. They placed an order that day. “Next thing you know they're selling out left and right.”

The two said they are coming up with a new line for the summer, including polos, shorts, and more play on word and graphic T-shirts. At some point they'd like to come up with a new design every month as a part of a new, greener initiative, said Maynard. His plan is to have people bring in old or unused T-shirts, turn them inside out and print a new logo or design.

“You have to wear it inside out, but that gets people's attention,” Maynard said. His idea was inspired by The Story of Stuff, which chronicles the life cycle of consumer products. One T-Shirt, from picking the cotton to the final product, produces about 30 pounds of carbon dioxide, which is about two gallons of gas, he said.

“I thought, 'What if we could have a way to create T-shirts and sell them but stop damaging the environment?'" he said.

Maynard said he hopes to sell 100 SPanchor Inside Out shirts, thereby cutting down 2,914 pounds of CO2, instead of having consumers going out and buying new shirts. At their most recent sale, they had people bring in about 35 shirts to be reprinted. The best thing about them, he said, is that they're half the price.

“Right now it's kind of like, 'What do we do next?'” Maynard said. In anticipation of St. Patrick's Day, they're pushing their new Irish-theme design.

Although they are both graduating in May, they said they would like to keep SPanchor running as a side project. Aalvik has applied to a dream job at Google in California, and Maynard will be heading to Syracuse University in the fall for graduate study in marriage and family therapy. Even thought they may be heading to different coasts, they don't plan on seeing SPanchor sink anytime soon.