By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
A 2007 graduate of Moapa Valley High School won the runner-up spot in the Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA) West Regional competition held in San Francisco on October 15. This distinction came after he won the top spot in the local GSEA contest last month held at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Hayden Bryant, who is an economics major at UNLV, won the contest for undergraduate entrepreneurs at colleges and universities in Southern Nevada.
Bryant is an owner of H.M. Cole, a luxury custom clothing and accessories company. The company was founded by Bryant, Daniel McConkie, Michael McConkie and Cole Harris. The partners met one another while serving LDS missions in Thailand between 2008-2010.
Bryant said that when he returned home from missionary service he wanted to start a company. He said he had loved the country of Thailand for many reasons. One of those was the fine quality clothing that could be purchased there for a relatively low price.
“In Bangkok you can find a tailor on every corner,” Bryant said. “I loved the suits that I had made while I was there and so I thought about how I could bring that to America.”
Bryant said that he made some trips back to Thailand after his mission to shop out the finest tailor available. He built a relationship with an excellent tailor to supply the H.M. Cole brand. He also developed relationships with suppliers in Italy in order to import fine materials to Thailand for manufacturing the clothing.
The company has tried to keep a broad market. They supply everything from high-end business suits for attorneys and executives, to more affordable clothing packages for departing LDS Missionaries.
H.M. Cole now has sales representatives in eight major cities across the country.
On the higher end, these reps aim to become the exclusive private clothier of each of their clients. They meet with clients, take a full set of measurements. Those measurements are sent to the supplier in Thailand and a full wardrobe can be developed, custom tailored to that client.
Sales reps also meet with soon-to-be departing missionaries to help get them fully outfitted for their missionary service.
“It’s a great service,” said Bryant’s mother, Stephanie Cannon, who lives in Logandale. “You don’t have to go anywhere to go shopping for the clothes. They come to you and get everything put together that the missionary needs; all in one place.”
Bryant said that he was pleasantly surprised to have done so well in the GSEA competition.
“I didn’t really go into it to win,” he said. “I had just walked into the UNLV Center for Entrepreneurship one day. When I told them what I was doing they were a little surprised and they encouraged me to sign up.”
“The competition and judging criteria helped me evaluate my business and think about how far we have come, what we have overcome, and where we are going,” he said. “The company has become more successful than we had planned. What started out as a college experiment has now become kind of a career.”
