CWDkids' Characters

Staff Profile #18 - Jim (with CWDkids since 1993)

I am the fourth generation of Klauses to work in the family business. CWDkids has evolved from the old Richmond Dry Goods Company, founded by my great-grandfather in 1911. My grandfather and my dad were prescient enough to guide the company in new directions at crucial points in our history. Now it is my responsibility to lead the company in the most economically challenging times our country has faced since the 1930s.

I think our greatest strength lies in the fact that we are a family business. For me, CWDkids is not simply my economic livelihood, as important as that is. CWDkids is my family history. When my dad made the transition into children’s clothing in the 1980s, our whole family got involved. My sister answered phones and her three children (shown with me in the photos for this post) modeled in our photo shoots; my mom put on her tennis shoes and filled orders; my aunt wrote the copy for our first catalogs.

Today we are fortunate in having a great professional staff as our CWDkids family. And we have you, our loyal customers who have grown to know us over the past two decades as the place you turn to for classic clothes for your kids. One thing I know we can count on in even in uncertain times: kids keep growing! So we at CWDkids will remain committed to our core philosophy: to offer you the best quality product at competitive prices.

So many of you have thanked us for offering clothes that “let kids be kids.” We appreciate hearing from you, both with what you like and what you think we can improve upon. We hope you will use our blog as a two way street. We enjoy letting you learn about us and we like hearing from you, too!

If you have any comments or suggestions as to how we can make CWDkids an even better company, please feel free to email me directly at jimk@cwdkids.com.

Also, don't forget to enter our Holiday Giveaway for a chance to win a $250 shopping spree!

Jim's Tidbits:

• I love living in Richmond and learning about its history is a great hobby.
• I also love to travel and spent 4 months backpacking in Asia before I started working at CWDkids in 1993.
• My six-year old nephew, Bennet, is crazy about Star Wars. He gave us the ideas of carrying the Junk Food Star Wars tees and they are best sellers in 2008!