Shelby Marquardt, the creator of blue sky scrubs, LLC, was an
anesthesiology resident at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas when she
introduced the scrub hats that were blue sky's first product.

As a medical student spending much of her time in the operating room,
she was dismayed at the prospect of wearing unattractive, ill-fitting
scrub hats for long hours every day. Worse, her long hair didn't fit
under the regular scrub hats, and she couldn't bring herself to don
the "bouffant," the hairnet-style hat that reigned supreme.

Using scraps of extra material, Shelby created the first (now called)
Pony hat in her living room.  After cutting, sewing and altering the
hat numerous times, she finally perfected the pattern—a sleek, slim-
fitting cap with a ribbon-tied pouch that neatly ties back a short or
a long ponytail. Once she started wearing the hat to work, her co-
workers clamored for their own Pony scrub hats, and she began spending
her weekends sewing.  Shelby was unable to keep up with all of the
requests, so she looked for someone to help sew the hats.  Her
husband, David Marquardt, who is an entrepreneur and the President of
a successful business in Austin, saw the potential with the scrub hats
and began the process of securing Patents, creating a website, and
marketing the product.

Before selling the hats online, Shelby "abused" the hats to make sure
they would hold up and so that she could improve upon any
imperfections she found while washing, drying, stretching, bending,
and folding the hats.  Once she felt that they were perfect, she let
David know and the "official" production began.

In 2005, the website at http://www.blueskyscrubs.com went live. David
and the one employee that he had hired watched as the first order came
through for a $24.00 hat.  A good day was selling at least one hat.
Now, only 4 years later, blue sky scrubs can barely keep their
products in stock, and fulfill roughly 100 orders per day.  In 2009,
two patents, one for design and one for utility for the Pony hat were
approved (U.S. Patent No. 7437777, D572879)  and one for the Pixie
hat  (U.S. Patent No. D547030), which Shelby created after many women
with shorter hair mentioned that they wanted the scrub hats as well.

Soon, men were requesting scrub hats as well as women who adored the
classic bouffant.  And so, Shelby created men's hats and the 'Poppy'
hat - a hat that resembles the bouffant but with a fashionable twist.
Finally, improving on an existing design, Shelby created scrub tops
and bottoms that have come to be popular in hospitals around the
world.

One of the key moments in blue sky scrubs' history was when we saw
Grey's Anatomy's season finale and Dr. "McDreamy" was sporting one of
our scrub hats!  We honestly had no idea that the hat would be on the
show.  This is a real story even though it sort of seems like it'd be
a great promotional - a resident at a hospital sews her own scrub hat
and a year later, that hat is on one of the most popular national TV
shows!

blue sky scrubs is unique in that the products - from start to finish
- are made in the USA.  The fabric comes primarily from New York, NY
and all of the manufacturing is still done in Houston, TX.  blue sky
scrubs ships all of their products from Austin, TX where the three
employees spend time ironing every product before it ships, answering
questions and taking orders over the telephone, and creating content
for the website.  The website definitely has a personal touch - all of
the content is written by the employees - those who know the most
about the products and the company.

blue sky scrubs hopes to grow and expand even more in the future.  The
possibilities are endless.

Posted by Eric Ward on 10/01/09
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