Carhartt’s CEO says they’ve always focused on blue-collar workers, but the hipsters still came: “we welcome anyone…who wants to celebrate hard work.”

“We really cared about the worker…we’re not trying to be all things to all people.”,” Hubbard said Fortune in a joint interview with Mary Culler, President of Ford Philanthropyas the two Detroit-area brands join forces in a multi-year partnership to power what Ford CEO Jim Farley calls “the essential economy.”

Farley estimated the shortage of essential workers at more than 1 million factory, construction and automotive workers. in June. “Today’s essential economy is at a crossroads,” Farley said in a statement to Fortune: “Stagnant productivity and an outdated belief that a four-year college degree is the only path to success. Since these 95 million jobs are the backbone of our country, we must change this narrative. To achieve this, Ford and Carhartt are joining forces in three critical areas: workforce development, community development, and the tools required by the men and women who keep the American dream alive. It’s time we all reinvest in the people who make our world work with their hands.”

“We’re not going to change this overnight,” Culler said. Fortunebut Ford “looked at ourselves” and decided there were barriers they could work to break down. “Tools are expensive. Transportation is a barrier. So we really need to start tackling these issues.”

Ford and Carhartt share Detroit DNA

The partnership between Ford and Carhartt has been “so smooth,” she added, thanks to sharing many common values ​​and literally being neighbors in the same city of Detroit. Culler said the partnership is close to his heart personally, having two children graduating from college: “And you see how tight the job market is. But of course, when her kids come home from college, she adds, there’s always one stop they ask for: “[They] I always love going to the Carhartt store in Detroit when they come home from school in the city. It’s always a stop.

The Ford and Carhartt camps know each other well through local volunteer efforts and a long history of working together, Culler said, but the cool factor is still undeniably on one side. Last summer, she recalls, she joined the Carhartt team for a volunteer project with Tool Bank USA, building benches for a large park.

“And the only reason I knew who the Carhartt people were was because they wore the coolest jumpsuits ever,” she said. “And I wanted [to buy] them right away. And then, of course, the Ford people wore their blue Ford volunteer shirts.

Culler described the partnership as a logical union, saying she sees Ford trucks and Carhartt equipment on most job sites she visits. The two companies are using their combined scale to move beyond “awareness” and become real “tactics” to solve the problem facing the essential economy.

According to Hubbard, this “philosophy” of giving back to the community and providing economic opportunity is what makes the partnership so smooth. Whether it involves redeveloping the Central Michigan innovation hub or construction of park benches for southwest Detroit, the two teams found an immediate “synergy” in their shared values.

Hubbard smiled knowingly when informed of Carhartt’s hipster cache (GQ wrote that the “ever popular” brand was “spend a moment” in 2023), but she dismissed it, attributing the brand’s crossover appeal to its unwavering authenticity, pointing out that many consumers are attracted to “Carhartt DNA,” often passed down through generations of working-class families. Form is temporary, she seemed to say, but class is permanent. In his opinion, the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce reported in 2020 Carhartt has produced more than 10 million pieces of workwear in the United States, making it the largest workwear manufacturer in the country.

“Everything we make is worth working for and we welcome anyone into the brand who wants to celebrate hard work,” she said. “So the fact that people want to wear it and maybe they’re not, you know, essential workers suits us if they want to celebrate hardworking people and celebrate a brand that’s trying to highlight that.”

The Carhartt CEO added that she never intended to run one of America’s coolest brands, but her winding journey from public accounting to running a 137-year-old Detroit label now finds itself at the center of a new initiative to help young people launch careers in the skilled trades, with Ford as an ally. “We’re a workwear brand and we’re not trying to be anything else.”

An unlikely path to Carhartt’s top job

Hubbard began his career in accounting, far from the world of rugged jackets and hoodies now favored by construction crews and Brooklyn twenty-somethings. “If you told me I was going to be selling T-shirts and hoodies at the end of my career, I would have been like, eh, what? » she recalls, emphasizing how unforeseen her trajectory was. She credited a series of opportunities, rather than a rigid master plan, with taking her from spreadsheets to running one of America’s most successful workwear companies.​

“The other thing in public accounting,” Hubbard said, gesturing to his teal green Carhartt work jacket. “You can’t dress like that.”

Culler seconded this, adding whenever she sees Linda in Detroit, “she always wears a cool Carhartt jacket, even by herself. I always wear it. It’s so cool.”

Hubbard shrugged off the compliment, pointing out that her decades of accounting experience made her a good CEO. (She joined Carhartt as CFO in 2002, after 20 years as an audit associate at Moran planta decade-long tenure and counting on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. After 10 years as CFO, she served as president and COO for 10 years before landing the top job at Carhartt in 2024.)

“We really focused on the worker and the primary worker,” she said. “And I think the authenticity of that is maybe what draws people to the brand: We’ve stayed true to who we are.”

This impromptu career path shapes the way she talks to young people about their own choices. When asked if she had planned her ascension, she was blunt: “Absolutely not,” she replied, emphasizing that one opportunity simply led to another and that the real goal is to remain open to evolutionary paths. The advice she gave to young job seekers is to “keep an open mind and think, you know, just listen to the facts about the opportunities that are out there.”

But Ford and Carhartt are offering more tools to young job seekers through their partnership.

For a teen who is unsure about going to college or a student looking to reduce debt, Hubbard and Culler said the key is both inspiration and practical support. Hubbard points young people to their “Join the professions” portal, built with the National Center for Teaching and Research in Constructionwhich helps users map their interests to specific careers, find training programs, and see which employers are currently hiring. Ford, meanwhile, works with partners like the TechForce Foundation to provide scholarships, wraparound support and even basics like tools and transportation, which are often the hidden costs that keep students from completing their tech programs.

Both executives point out that skilled trades are often paid 25 to 50 percent more than the median salary and can serve as a launching pad into management or even senior management. Hubbard said he collaborated with many manufacturing industry leaders at Farley’s. Ford Pro Acceleration Conference in September, I even heard stories of CEOs who started as electricians and worked their way up.

“I’ve met a few people who started out in the skilled trades, but then wanted to start their own business and they realized they needed a business degree to actually be able to run their business,” Culler said. “But that didn’t happen until 10 years later, after they were, you know, plumbers and electricians. And I thought that was really amazing, because now they’ve kind of moved on.”

Hubbard smiled when informed of this publisher’s connection to Carhartt in the New York area: his father’s favorite store, the Lower Manhattan dad clothing specialty store known as Dave’s. (Like Carhartt, the unpretentious workwear boutique has acquired a hipster cachet, for example by partnering with the sneaker blog became a fashion magazine Highsnobiety in 2023.)

“I know Dave’s,” Hubbard said, displaying the instant memory of a frame in close contact with his print. “I was just here, just a month ago, visiting the owners. They are a big customer of ours.” She said the name was misleading, because “the owners of Dave’s are actually Bob and Adam, but the company was originally founded by a guy named Dave, and it’s really great. It’s a great Carhartt experience and a New York experience, for sure.”