Remember how excited you were as a kid to have your back-to-school outfit and a backpack full of new supplies? Even as an adult the best thing about starting a new job is the new clothes and equipment. Human Resources would like me to remind you about the fantastic benefits, superlative training, and supportive work environment here too… but we all know that part of the appeal of becoming a deputy at the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office (PCSO) is the sharp uniform. Other units are no slouches either – many have agency polos, Oxfords, or other specialized clothing, all beautifully customized by the Imprinting component of Uniform Supply.
Each newly hired deputy is outfitted with 57 different types of garments and equipment in addition to their firearms and Taser. Before a new group starts the academy or begins their in-house training, they pay a visit to Uniform Supply. It takes about 45 minutes to fit a deputy with everything they’ll need, from belt keepers that snap their duty belt to their regular trouser belt, to their shiny five-pointed badge. They’ll use some of the items like handcuffs almost every day. Other things – like the campaign hat – might only come out a few times in a career. Some are tiny, like the washers, whistles, toggles, and tie tacks. But all of them are essential for a deputy to perform their duties.
Many items are standard size, but a lot of them are fitted. Some deputies come in knowing their size, while others are a little unrealistic about what size they need. Purchasing Manager Eric Vincent said, “We make sure we guide them through that, because the uniform needs to look good. If they need the next size up, we’ll tell them… in a professional way. When deputies come in for bigger pants the standard joke is that they shrunk in the wash.” Vincent knows better – he always chooses material that isn’t prone to shrinking.
Five of the standard uniform items go through Imprinting, which includes embroidery and the heat press. They used to use silk screening, which was labor intensive and required a lot of clean-up. “A member can heat press a hundred garments in just a couple of hours,” Vincent said. “The quality is so much better. On silk screens the design would crack and fade. This holds up a lot better.”
But most of the important garments are embroidered. This isn’t like your nana sewing flowers on a hankie. The most common pattern – the PCSO star – has almost 17,000 stitches. The word “SHERIFF” that appears on the back of many shirts has nearly 37,000 stitches. They are sewn on industrial machines that can handle six garments at once. “The embroidery isn’t just one big pass and it’s done,” Vincent said. “It will start with the gold and do a certain outline. Then the machine will stop and pivot around and do a layer of black.” Then it might return to gold, then a little blue, creating lines and layers that give the sheriff’s star richness and depth.
“There are different challenges for different garments,” he said. “The agency has gone to thinner, stretchy, wicking materials, which are comfortable to wear but are difficult to work with.” All embroidered garments are fastened in a hoop and backing is used to make sure the design stays straight and doesn’t bunch up. One garment has a flap that must be removed prior to imprinting and then sewn back into place. The heavy winter jacket is too puffy for the embroidery machine, so that has a star patch sewn onto it instead.
Uniform Supply keeps track of a staggering number of items. There are about 800 different part numbers for the Oxford shirts alone, when you consider men’s and women’s styles, size, color, and three options for sleeve length. “We’re trying to weed out some of the things that people rarely request, like men’s short sleeved Oxfords.” Things get tricky when a manufacturer discontinues a product, as recently happened with the long sleeve polo shirts. “Now I have to find another polo that is as close a match as possible, which isn’t easy to do.” It would look unprofessional to have two deputies standing next to each other in different shades of green.
Vincent’s career history makes him perfect for his position. He was a PCSO deputy from 1990-1993 so he knows the world of law enforcement. “I graduated from Florida State with my bachelor’s in criminology which opens just a couple of doors for you, one of which is to go into law enforcement. At the wise age of 19 I decided that’s what I wanted to do with my life.” Later he took a leave of absence and went back to college to get a degree in accounting. From there he got into purchasing and managing operations. He got accustomed to dealing with vast sums of money when he was the brand name pharmaceutical buyer for Eckerd Corporation, buying $7-billion a year for them. “I’d spend $240 million in a day. The first couple of multimillion dollar purchase orders I placed had me scared to death.”
Vincent came back to the PCSO in 2015 and is happy to be able to combine his experience in law enforcement and purchasing. “I know from my short stint as a deputy the kinds of demands they deal with every day. So being a part of supplying them with some of the tools they need to make the job a little better – and most of all safer – means a lot to me.”
