I have been asked many times where Big Sky Sportswear got its name.  Big Sky is normally associated with Montana.  Since I was not the founder of the business, I thought I should do some investigating. Bob Barowsky's wife, Nancy started the business in 1981.  At that time Boise State was in the Big Sky conference.  Since then BSU has moved into the WAC (Fiesta Bowl Champions!!! in 2007 I might add), but the name Big Sky Sportswear has remained.  Besides WAC would not be a good name for a company.   Bob also thought it was worth noting that Montana does not have a monopoly on beautiful skies.

I bought the business from Bob in 2005.  It had been run (very successfully) for several years by his daughter, Angie.  I was fortunate to buy a business with a sound reputation in the community, so there was no reason to change the name to undo negative publicity.  There wasn't any.  The screen printing business was merged with my embroidery business, Perceptions Custom Embroidery, which was started in 2000.  I decided to retain the Big Sky name for a number of reasons.  The name recognition, signage, and it was way easier to spell when a customer is writing a check.

Since then we have replaced the screen printing press which has made multi-color designs less daunting.  We also replaced the printer we use for screen printing artwork..  We are able to do half-tones now.  In a nutshell a half-tone prints dots so when we print your design in black ink on a white shirt we can get totally black in some area and half black in others (to look like a grey).  It enables us to print your design with a 2 color look without the 2 color price.  If you ever want a more complete picture of how the process works, give us a call.  We would be happy to schedule a tour of our operations.  (I always liked field trips and assume others like them also.)

We continue to evolve, try new things and keep up with what’s new in the apparel industry.  Looking forward to working with you soon!