Leader puts local business first

It's funny how the dots connect, the way a series of seemingly unrelated events can set the stage for a bigger purpose in life. For Jamee Haley, one was her mermaid pillow phase.

She and her husband, Jim, were living in Jacksonville, Fla. She was doing some catering, but mostly she was busy being a mom to two youngsters.

Prompted by doing over her daughter's room, Haley started designing and making hand-embroidered mermaid pillows and selling them to beach stores. On a whim, she sent one to Coastal Living magazine. The editors liked it and gave it a plug in an issue as a cool new product, photo included.

"The next thing I knew, I was seriously into the pillow-making business. I would be in the carpool line doing embroidery."

Before long, her mermaid pillows were in at least 70 stores around the country, including Neiman Marcus. She was going to trade shows; she started a line of baby bedding.

"It got to the point where I had to go big or go home, and go big meant go to China" to outsource the manufacturing. Haley got samples from China to find out.

"It freaked me out how close they could come to what I was producing. And it was cheap, but I just couldn't do it."

The business no longer exists, but Haley says she had a "good ride" with it. "I still have a ridiculous amount of fabric. Now I can't pick it up."

But she did pick up an insight that soon would lead her into a future as executive director of Lowcountry Local First, a nonprofit organization that promotes the local economy through supporting independent businesses and agriculture. Haley, 45, has been its leader since the group formed in 2007.

"I realized what a disservice I was doing to my own community by sending things out of the country to have them done. Not just to my own country, but to that country as well. China needs to learn to be self-sufficient as well, and those people need to be paid a fair wage. If they could produce something that cheaply, there's no way I could feel good about it."

She put those thoughts into practice when she became a founding member of Lowcountry Local First. The group is one of 80 community networks across the country affiliated with San Francisco-based Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, or BALLE.

In two weeks, May 21-23, BALLE will hold its eighth annual business conference in Charleston, titled "Lighting the Way to a New Economy."

Dozens, if not hundreds, of entrepreneurs and business owners, network leaders, economic developers, government representatives and community leaders are expected to convene for the event. In more than 30 sessions over three days, they will discuss models and strategies for manufacturing, small businesses, sustainable agriculture, the arts, green development, capital, job creation, government policies and more.

While it may sound arcane, "local living economies" is a concept that is catching on, Haley says.

"I think there's a new generation that thinks it's pretty sexy. ... It's been happening in other parts of the country, but this is something completely new for this area. I think people are pretty excited."

Haley says membership in Lowcountry Local First has doubled in the past year to just over 300. The group's ongoing initiatives include a farmers incubator program, an online market connecting farms to chefs, the "10% Shift" campaign to redirect spending to local businesses, and a "Buy Local Week" in December.

Still, she concedes that the message is not completely clear about the network, "who we are and what we do."

Haley wants to make one thing understood. "We're definitely an organization for and not against -- for local independent businesses but not against big box."

Destination Charleston

Here's another dot: how she put down roots in Charleston. Fresh out of Oklahoma State with a degree in economics, Haley wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Wanderlust made an offer, and she accepted.

She traveled through New Zealand and Australia for a year. She moved to St. John in the Caribbean, where she worked at a hotel and met her husband. The two traveled together in Venezuela.

They returned to Oklahoma for a visit, then were driving to Jim's home on Nantucket when they took a "very Southern detour" to Charleston. Haley says both of them "really fell in love" with the city.

Jim and Jamee went on to Nantucket and were married in 1991. Three years passed. She worked as the head concierge at the Wauwinet Inn. They dreamed of running a B&B one day.

"A long winter turns you into a pretty good cook," Haley says with a laugh, remembering the "ridiculous" lunches she used to make for her husband.

She wanted to go to culinary school and picked Johnson & Wales University in Charleston. After she earned her degree and was turning 30, Haley found out she was pregnant with her first child, son Brody. So she didn't pursue restaurant work -- the hours were too crazy for a new mom.

She and Jim moved to Dewees Island in 1996, where he worked as the property's controller and manager. She ran the island's inn and did the cooking. In some ways, it was an idyllic Lowcountry life. They caught fish, shrimp and crab. The family was surrounded by nature. They left the island only about once a week, and learned to do with a lot less.

"There was kind of an indentured servant side of it, too, being the only staff that lives on the island," she recalls. "We were pretty much on call 24-7, and that got pretty exhausting."

After four years there, the Haleys moved to Jacksonville and stayed for the next two years. Then an opportunity opened up for Jim to be chief financial officer for the Noisette Co. in North Charleston, and the couple came back.

Then another dot: Haley met Matt Bauer. He was a social entrepreneur and co-founder of BetterWorld Telecom who had relocated to Charleston from Washington, D.C. He also was trying to get a BALLE network established in Charleston.

For Haley, BALLE represented "everything I believed in and had been living, but I just didn't realize there was any kind of voice for it."

She joined its steering committee, and then became the group's executive director.

The first 18 months, "I worked pretty much as a full-time volunteer." While things are better now -- she draws a salary -- getting the nonprofit on sure financial footing remains a struggle, she says.

Back to Main Street

The encouraging news is that Lowcountry Local First is being recognized as a network leader in the Southeast, Haley says. "I think because there is such a strong sense of place here, that has enabled us to grow faster than other networks."

But the Lowcountry presents its own set of challenges. For one, the lack of a sustainable agricultural system -- the old way of farming won't work for the future, she says. "Joseph Fields becoming organic is a great example of someone breaking out of the traditional model."

Haley sums up what Lowcountry Local First stands for, and why.

"I think the big picture for us ... by supporting local we're strengthening our economy. The wonderful byproducts of that, we are also helping the environment, we are preserving historic and rural spaces and creating better jobs. I think that local businesses tend to make better employers. They are most likely to give their employees a living wage and hopefully better benefits. Local business owners have a heightened awareness of that because they want to keep their employees."

Haley adds, "We went so far away into that Wall Street mentality and we're trying to get back to a Main Street mentality. These are not new ideas -- people are realizing the value of supporting the moms and pops."

Teresa Taylor is the food editor. Reach her at food@postandcourier.com.