Who knew that a sports bra designed by former NFL wide receiver and Rice alumnus Bert Emanuel ‘94 would be worn by women in the United States Armed Forces around the world?

Emanuel’s company, KAOS Worldwide, signed a five-year contract with the Army to supply more than 200,000 bras per year. A manufacturer of technical clothing systems, KAOS has been shipping 20,000 bras each month to the Army, which distributes them to countries in which the U.S. has a presence.

“Our clothing systems are the first line of defense against the harshest elements on the planet,” Emanuel said. “They keep soldiers cooler in the desert heat, warmer in the cold and more comfortable in every environment. The United States Army selected KAOS garments for our soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan specifically because of our product’s unique combination of performance, superior construction and comfort. Our garment was unanimously selected by military personnel as the most technically comfortable product on the market.”

Emanuel said the KAOS bra is “amazingly light and soft,” and he trademarked that signature feature as “KAOS Komfort.”

DuPont-certified fabrics are included in the proprietary fibers, and the high-tech properties of KAOS garments are embedded in the yarns. “Since they aren’t additives, which most competitive brands use, they won’t wear off after washing,” Emanuel said.

The design for the KAOS bra and the company’s other clothing systems resulted from Emanuel’s experiences on the playing field at Rice and in the NFL. A three-time letterman on the Rice baseball team and a two-time All-Southwest Conference quarterback at Rice, Emanuel led the Owls football team to its first winning season in 29 years in 1993. After graduating from Rice in ‘94, he was drafted by the NFL and racked up nearly 5,000 receiving yards and scored 28 touchdowns during his eight-year career with teams in Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Miami, New England and Detroit.

Early in his sports career, Emanuel was wearing two or three shirts on the field to stay warm and dry, but the multilayered attire was restrictive. He and his wife, Teri, started experimenting with various fabrics to come up with one piece that would perform multiple tasks: regulate body temperature without irritating the skin, wick away sweat and still allow for full range of motion.

After months of research, they found a DuPont nylon polymer that met all their criteria. Better yet, it felt comfortable too. In 2001 Emanuel established a sports apparel company known as KAOS Sports and bought the rights to the materials and patterns to design a new line of high-tech sports garments that Emanuel field-tested in the truest sense of the word.

KAOS Sports no longer exists, but in 2005 Emanuel and his wife established KAOS Worldwide — “a more thought-through business model that focuses on long-term sustainable opportunities and revenues,” he said. Teri, who has a degree in economics, is the majority shareholder, and the company is classified as a woman-owned enterprise. She oversees production and operations and manages the logistical supply chain to make sure that KAOS products get “from point A to point B in the most efficient and least costly manner,” Emanuel said.

The comfortable feel of KAOS products made the Emanuels realize that the company’s potential customers extended beyond athletes, so they expanded production and marketing efforts and submitted a proposal to the military for the sports bra.

Although the business is based in Stafford, Texas, KAOS has strategic partnerships with fabric mills on the East and West coasts that manufacture their products. “Everything we make is manufactured domestically, so we’re doing our part to help stimulate the U.S. economy and support the textile manufacturing industry,” Emanuel said.

His B.A. in managerial studies at Rice helped him understand how to start a business and how to manage supply and demand, but Emanuel credits his mom, a marketing professional who worked for Coca-Cola, with developing the business plan that led to KAOS’ global marketing.

Right now the company has fewer than 10 employees, some of whom are also former athletes.

“The biggest advantage that we have is our professional sports careers because we’ve been able to wear our products in cold and warm weather and inside a dome, so we understand what it takes to be comfortable,” he said. “Those past experiences are invaluable.”

The company plans to add sales people and product designers as it expands into the retail business. Emanuel is hopeful that KAOS clothing systems will appeal to firefighters, police, factory workers, weekend warriors, nurses, delivery personnel and countless others. The company recently added Continental Airlines as a client and expects to receive Small Business Administration certification this year.

While Emanuel is optimistic about KAOS’ prospects for success, he hasn’t forgotten the challenging early years of his business.

“Like many other entrepreneurs, I got to that point where you push and push and push and things seem to be going forward, and then you feel you’ve gone three to four steps backward and feel like giving up,” Emanuel said. “And then all of a sudden, an opportunity presents itself in terms of a bid proposal with the military, you take a shot and you win. You go from being a company that was dead and on its way out to forming a new company that has new life.”

Emanuel views those ups and downs as a valuable learning experience, and they’re reflected in the company’s name, a play on “chaos.”

“Our brand stands for the time period that is necessary for a lot of people to go through,” Emanuel said. “Most successful people go through tremendous challenges, chaos and failure before they can really understand and value success. If you have not experienced failure at some level, you’ve never experienced success. It’s necessary for growth and development, and it’s the foundation for people persevering.”

BY: B.J. ALMOND
Rice News staff