Meet Thomas McIntyre

 

We recently connected with Thomas McIntyre and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Thomas , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

I started my post college professional life as a Tax CPA. I will come right out of the gate and tell you that I was not a good CPA; but the experience was invaluable. Transitioning from a build-your-own-schedule college lifestyle to a track-every-15 minutes-because its billable CPA firm lifestyle was extremely challenging. I was surrounded by very intelligent driven individuals and it was somewhat addicting to see how much you could get done in a week. Nights and weekends were the norm and it really allowed be to develop those endurance muscles. The entrepreneur in me could not wait transition out of that environment, but anytime I have what seems to be an impossible amount of work (which is often) I harness my inner CPA and get to work.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I was 15 years old when I really got the bug to be a business owner. I started a car detailing business after my dad’s boss asked if I had any interest giving his car a deep clean before he sold it. This quickly lead to me detailing cars all through high school and most of college. I realized working for myself was great, but I what really wanted to do was build a company that was full people that I enjoyed working with versus just working by myself.

This first company I started with my business partner Tyler Enders, is called Made in KC. It turns 10 years old in 2025 and it is primarily a brick & mortar retail store that sells all things made by makers and artists here in KC. What started as a 300 square foot shop in a stairwell now has 165 employees, operates 15 locations, and works with over 200 local artists and makers. One the makers that Made In Kc first worked with was a company called Sandlot Goods.

Sandlot Goods was founded by Chad Hickman in 2013 as primarily a leather goods manufacturer. During the pandemic Made in KC partnered with Sandlot Goods to purchase sewing machines and hire team members to sew face masks. In the end, Sandlot made over 800,000 face masks during the pandemic. As the need for masks wound down, Sandlot transitioned its machinery and labor to start making baseball hats – a product that Chad had always wanted to manufacture here in the USA. Quickly after this shift to Hat making, I joined Sandlot as their CEO to help grow the company.

We have only been manufacturing hats for 3.5 years but we currently produce 1500 units a week. 99% of hats are made in other countries and Sandlot’s mission is to make the highest quality hats possible while giving a good wage an benefits to our skilled sewing team. Manufacturing has left the US for a reason – it is really hard to compete with price- but we proudly take on that challenge and are passionate about the value of products made in the USA.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

1. Leadership doesn’t have to look like a brave, stoic person that always makes the right decision. Leading with passion, kindness, and empathy can be messy at times but I believe is ultimately the best path.

2. “Enthusiasm is common, Endurance is rare” – Angela Duckworth. This has become a quote I live by. The power to endure will get you far.

3. Positivity is potentially the most important human skill. The power of positive thinking is real, and surrounding yourself with positive people will help keep you in the right mindset when things don’t feel so positive.

Thanks so much for sharing all these insights with us today. Before we go, is there a book that’s played in important role in your development?

In my accounting program at Truman State, we were forced to read The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt. At the time I was annoyed to get a reading assignment in an accounting class, but fast-forward 13 years and I am the CEO of a manufacturing company and I am reading the book every month trying to obtain a new nugget of knowledge to apply to my manufacturing floor. The book is a fictitious story of a plant manager trying to increase output of his factory. In the end, the book teaches the lesson of the theory of constraints which can be applied to any facet of life, but very directly in the world of manufacturing. Find your bottlenecks (weakest, slowest point), make that the rhythm that everything else beats to, and then work to improve your bottleneck. Repeat.

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