By B. Crawford

“The kid’s a fighter.” That’s how former ShopTalk! owner and writer Dan Preston described 37-year-old Jeff Ballard back in 2004, when Jeff first opened Thoroughbred Leather, Inc., based in Louisville, Kentucky. Jeff was facing stiff competition from more experienced leather purveyors and the ShopTalk! article was a welcome surprise. “The article compared us to the top leather brand in the US,” Jeff recalls. “When people read the article, they thought, ‘Maybe we should give Thoroughbred a try.’ It was a real boost to the company.”   

With a little help from ShopTalk!, Jeff Ballard and Thoroughbred Leather took off like a racehorse. For almost two decades, Jeff Ballard has been providing leather workers with superior leather made from American cattle and processed to exacting standards of excellence. 

“I have got two different Amish customers coming in today,” Jeff says, speaking with me on a busy Monday, right before Christmas. “One customer makes saddles and western tack here in Kentucky. The other Amish customer makes all kinds of leather products – belts, bags, cell phone cases – and sells them on Etsy. It takes a little bit of time to figure out exactly what kind of leather they want, but that’s a great kind of problem to have.”   

As the head of Thoroughbred Leather for almost 20 years, Jeff has learned that he has to roll with the punches of the marketplace. “The best advice I ever got about running a business was from a guy who told me, ‘What you do every morning is write down your plan for the day, walk into your office, wad that paper up and throw it in the garbage can. It all starts from there.” 

Jeff first got into the leather business almost by accident. “I came to the business pretty much blind,” Jeff says. After graduating from the University of Louisville with a degree in marketing, Jeff sent out his resume to a bunch of different companies. “Back in the day, you had to send your resume to a PO Box, so you didn’t know where it was going. So, I was surprised when I got a call from a tannery for an interview.”  

Jeff nailed the interview and landed a sales job at Caldwell/Moser Leather in New Albany, Indiana, in 1991. He worked there for 10 years, then worked in sales at Wickett & Craig for a few years. In 2004, Jeff got a phone call from a contact at Tasman Industries, the fourth biggest supplier of green rawhide in the US. Jeff’s contact wanted to talk to him about Teneria, a tannery located in Orizaba, Mexico, in the Gulf Coast state of Vera Cruz. His contact explained that the Solis family, which owned the business, wanted to sell its products in the US market and would Jeff be interested in working with Tasman to introduce leather from Teneria to the US market.    

Jeff was intrigued. He did his research. He found that Teneria produced leather according to “old world” methods to develop deep, consistent colors and a rich feel. Teneria definitely produced world-class leather. 

“Things work differently in Mexico,” Jeff says. “People take real pride in their work. The tannery was founded by an old German guy, an excellent tanner who set up all the formulations. The Solis family in Orizaba bought the tannery and has run it as a family business ever since.”   

Jeff Ballard decided to take the challenge of running his own business. He opened a warehouse in Louisville, Kentucky, in December 2003, and received his first container load of 2,300 sides of leather on March 15, 2004. The name he chose for his company, located in the home of the Kentucky Derby? Thoroughbred Leather, of course.  

Today, Jeff’s desk is still in the middle of his action, right outside of the 10,000-square-foot warehouse. Jeff explains, “I spend my days selling, sorting, shipping and soliciting. We run a low-overhead business here. So, one of three guys is going to take care of the customer. It all starts with a conversation. We have to find out what the customer needs, then do the best we can to fulfill that need. The person you order from will also pull your order. We are a really hands-on business.”  

Jeff works hard to meet the needs of his clients. “It is important to keep in touch with the industry and the people who are going to be building the leather business in the future,” Jeff says. 

“My main clients are saddle shops and factories, holster manufacturers, manufacturers of leather collars, harness shops, small mom/pop leather shops and distributors.”  He has had his experiences with strange orders, and laughs, “Some of those products may not be printable.”  

Jeff says that the most important thing to growing a business is relationships. “Our business grows depending upon how successful our customers are.” 

Over the years, Jeff has helped many of his customers succeed. “The small-scale leather craftsmen play a big role in the business. Most all my large accounts today started as a one-person shop. It’s always great to see growth or hear the story about how they grew.”  

Jeff has noticed one common problem faced by leathercrafters who started out as creative types. “So many of my successful customers have told me, ‘Man, I wish I was back to one man making stuff and selling it.’” With success comes all the headaches of running a business and Jeff is there to help any way he can. 

As his customer base has grown over the years, one of the biggest changes Jeff has had to deal with is new technology. It’s not the technology used to process leather, but the social media technology customers use to make their orders. “Today you’ve got social media, but you still have the old school social media, word of mouth.” Jeff says. “I come from the school of thought that says the best thing about this business is the friends you make. I’ve got friends of mine who might be brand loyal to another company, but they sure go ahead and tell people about us. It’s all through friendships.”  

“I’m pretty old school. I call myself a low-tech redneck.” For Jeff, technology can get in the way of customer service. “The leather business still is old fashioned,” Jeff says. “Leather is a touch-and-feel business, which is hard to translate into a high-tech business.”  

“What I like is having a dialogue over the telephone, that way you get to know somebody, and you get to know what they are doing, and you can go out there and choose the right leather for them. It’s a lot harder to create that relationship and that dialogue when someone sends you an email.”  

Jeff has found low-tech solutions to high-tech problems. Technology has affected the way people are buying.  

“In today’s world,” Jeff says, “people are used to ordering something and then immediately getting an email stating it’s shipped, and here’s the tracking number. I run our operation with two other guys and myself. So, you might have to wait for that tracking number or you might have to ask for that tracking number. Even though we have shipped it. This is my technology. I’ll take a picture of the tracking number and I text it to them. It seems to work and it’s a lot easier for me. The only problem is that I have to go back and delete all my pictures because it jams up the data in my phone!” 

While his business is located in Louisville, Jeff is proud to live in Bardstown, Kentucky, the bourbon capital of the world. Jeff, a soft-spoken story-telling southerner, does indeed like his bourbon and his horses. 

“Have you ever been to Churchill Downs?” Jeff asks, referring to the track that is the home of the Kentucky Derby. “I enjoy going to the back side of Churchill Downs, the paddock area, where the horses are stabled. I enjoy going there before the horses go out onto the track. It’s like a whole other world with workers and trainers, saddling up the horses. It ties in with the leatherwork. We have a lot of leather on thoroughbred horses.” 

When he is not hanging out at Churchill Downs, Jeff enjoys spending time with his family. Jeff, who is now 56, has been married for 33 years to his “great wife” Shawn. The Ballards have three children. Cole, 28, has a master’s degree and works at Midway College. Their middle son, Connor, 26, makes bourbon for a living, and their daughter, Sara, 22, is studying at Spalding University to be an occupational therapist. 

“My mom is still living. I talk to her every morning and every night, going to and from the warehouse, so that’s a blessing too.” 

While he was growing his business, Jeff had to spend a lot of time on the road. Jeff says, “My wife kids me that I left her at home with all the yard apes.” Today, Jeff and Shawn are able to travel together and enjoy attending leather shows together. “I am able to introduce her to people I’ve been talking about for 30 years,” Jeff says. “A lot of my contacts didn’t believe that I was really married. They didn’t believe anyone would be dumb enough to marry me.” 

“People ask me all the time, ‘Do you make anything with leather?’” Jeff says, “and I tell them, ‘I make a living with leather.’”  

  “I’ve sat in many shops and watched people make stuff, but I’ve never actually made anything with leather. I don’t have that part of the brain, I guess. But the whole process amazes me. You go from a raw green hide that comes off an animal through shipping and tanning and then into someone’s hands who makes it into a saddle, a belt, a handbag – stuff that just blows your mind.”  

One of the things Jeff likes about the world of leather is that there is a lot of respect in the business, respect for the process and the product. Leather remains a popular product because it is such a sustainable product. “The products made from our type of leathers can last a lifetime if taken care of. Saddles, briefcases…you can pass on these products from father to son. We all as a leather industry need to continue to educate the good of leather as it continues to be attacked in news – from the cows to the tannery to leather consumers causing all the world problems.” 

“One of my first customers was a Buddhist. He was an American guy, lived in the middle of Wyoming, but he practiced Buddhism. And he was real spiritual about leather. It would bother him when he went into the shop and cut 20 or 30 hides of leather. Then, he turned to me one time holding a piece of leather and he said to me, ‘If you think about it, I am giving this cow eternal life.’”  

Has Jeff Ballard become a Buddhist philosopher? No. He’s still the same “Louisville slugger” he was when he first appeared in ShopTalk! in 2004. He is still an honest, hardworking, family-loving, bourbon-sipping, Kentucky-bred businessman, who enjoys nothing more than leading leather craftsmen into the Thoroughbred Leather winners’ circle.