A decade ago, Garrison Doctor was a young guy from Colorado looking for a job to replace the freelance architectural rendering gig he lost during the Great Recession.
He was guiding, working some odd jobs and spending a lot of time in fly shops. A talented artist and passionate fly angler, Garrison noticed that there was an opportunity in apparel that said, “I love fly fishing in Colorado.”
The idea was born. If it worked in Colorado, why not Montana, or Wyoming or North Carolina? No matter where you were from or where you liked to fish, you could represent your home water with a shirt or a hat with a great unique design. Corinne Doctor, Garrison’s business and life partner and a passionate fly fisher herself, worked with Garrison to grow RepYourWater while also teaching high school Spanish for six years. She made the leap to full time in 2016 and has never looked back.
Now RepYourWater does not just offer great regional fishing hats and shirts, but offers a huge variety of goods including outerwear like their recycled hoodies and insulated vests, performance sun shirts and hoodies, lightweight flannels made from organic cotton yarn and tons of awesome fishy accessories like mugs, belts, glasses and fine art prints.
From the start, Corinne and Garrison wanted to be about more than high-quality apparel and merchandise for people who love the outdoors. So, early in the life of the company, they teamed up with Colorado Trout Unlimited to contribute a percentage of all their Colorado themed gear to the conservation of Colorado fisheries.
As the company grew and more people knew about the products, they partnered with more TU chapters and councils. RepYourWater not only makes great gear that promotes those groups and their conservation mission. They gave back a portion of the proceeds to those same groups to further that mission. It is a win-win deal for everyone. But it didn’t stop there.
Since 2011, RepYourWater has donated over $98,000 in cash to TU chapters and projects. But it didn’t stop there either. They’ve donated hundreds of products in-kind to TU at every level.
They’ve donated design time and production costs in developing hats and stickers and other merchandise to promote TU campaigns like Embrace-a-Stream and Save the Smith. They’ve hosted and sponsored events for their local chapter. They’ve served in leadership positions with Colorado TU. And they’ve done it all with the bright, optimistic “glass is at least half full” attitude that characterizes everything they do.