FLEECE INC. STOREFRONT PROVIDES OUTLET FOR GROWING MANUFACTURER

The small Broadway storefront with Fleece Inc. printed on the door doesn't reveal much about the big Bootheel company behind it.

Fleece is one of five outlet stores for Dean Manufacturing and Sales Inc. of Malden. Kyle Dean operates the outlets while his father and mother, G.W. and Harriet Ann Dean, handle the factory. They produce knit shirts, pants, skirts, sweatshirts and Polar Fleece sweatshirts. The last item is made from recycled two-liter plastic bottles.

Dean Manufacturing began production in 1979 with a small shop and six seamstresses. Now it employs 50 people, and Kyle Dean said the company could use a few more if there was space to put them. He joined the family business in 1989 to handle retail stores -- the one in Cape Girardeau and four others in Arkansas.

They do well, and Dean has sold three to store managers. The whole company's main problem is finding people to work in the Malden plant.

"We even donated sewing machines to Malden High School and guaranteed students who learned on them a shot at a job after they graduated," Dean said. "There is another sewing place in Malden, and there aren't that many young people who want to go into the business."

Still, Dean Manufacturing keeps enough on hand to fill orders for wholesale and retail accounts. About 10 percent of the output goes to Dean's Fleece Inc. stores.

Dean said the manufacturing and sales sides of the business will merge soon, and he will oversee a new plant somewhere. He would like to keep the company in Southeast Missouri, but a lack of seamstresses here may prevent that.

Another branch of the company, established in Western Tennessee, closed in the late 1980s.

"We would at least like to start with about 35 people," Dean said. "The key is getting somewhere you can find sewing machine operators."

Even though Dean will get out of the outlet business, he said his Cape Girardeau store would remain in business.