The Daily Times

When you walk through the production area at GoTeez Clothing Company in Alcoa, the first things you’ll notice is quiet efficiency. Employees do their jobs quickly and well, embellishing T-shirts with popular sayings — sayings such as “I love my husband,” “I love my wife” or “I am the wretch the song refers to” — or applying rhinestones in the shape of a cross.

Welcome to GoTeez, home of Red Letter 9 Christian products which include T-shirts, license plates, laptop skins and more.

Brian Johnston founded the business in Tallahassee in 1992 while he was a student at Florida State University. A native of Blount County, Johnston moved his family — wife Amy and sons Garrett, Gavin, Grant and Griffin — and his business to Alcoa in February 2010 after the Honda Motorcycle shop on Lois Lane became available.

The family business also includes Johnston’s parents, Blount natives John and Sandra Johnston. John is sales manager and Sandra is the bookkeeper.

Two in one

“The wonderful thing about this particular business, and really why we’re here, is that it can really be anywhere. I wanted to live here. This is where I wanted to raise my kids, and so we picked this place on purpose,” Brian Johnston said. “We looked for a long time to find this building.”

GoTeez is, in effect, a two-pronged business. The GoTeez side caters to business-oriented clients, schools, churches, etc., who place custom orders, while Red Letter 9 includes the originally created Christian designs produced and kept stocked.

“All of our customers are pretty much nation-wide, but we’ve gained lots of local business since we’ve been here — Alcoa, Eagleton, Mary Blount, all these local schools. We’ve done things for churches. We’ve done things so far for East Maryville, First Baptist, where I go, and RIO,” Johnston said. GoTeez has also contracted with companies such as ESPN and Dunkin Donuts.

“We print nothing that is offensive, and no alcohol,” Johnston said.

GoTeez/Red Letter 9 products are sold in 13 different countries, including more than 3,000 stores in the United States, and appear in two different languages. The business employs 18. Close to 100,000 pieces of product will be shipped to retailers in February.

Two of Johnston’s partners, John McKinney, of North Carolina, and Luis Lopez, of Pennsylvania, are integral parts of the business. They provide the artwork for the products and send it to Bethany Smith at the Alcoa location. From there, the images are prepared for transfer onto high-quality cotton T-shirts. Partners David Adams and Martin Shipman live in Florida.

“We have three presses,” Johnston explained during a tour of the facility, gesturing to one of the presses. “This is an order being packaged, ready to ship to more than 300 different family Christian stores all over the country. That’s their Easter promotion for the year. The girls here will run the folder and put the side strip on the shirts exactly as it’s supposed to be.”

More than 100 designs are stocked and ready for shipment whenever the customer desires. These designs appear in a catalog that goes out three times annually. “Locally, we have almost every design we carry at Cedar Springs,” Johnston said. It was at this store, Cedar Springs Christian Store in Knoxville, that Johnston got his first Bible after going there with his uncle, Bill Hubbard, in 1990.

“They were having a sale on student Bibles,” Johnston said. “I didn’t believe any of that stuff. My uncle had been leaning on me and witnessing to me for years, and I just bought one because it was five bucks. It wasn’t but a few months later that I was led to the Lord by a minister down in Florida when I was going to Florida State. ... Now, they’ve got a whole wall of our product over there.”

One at a time

“This is my 20th year doing T-shirts, and my 17th year doing Christian T-shirts,” Johnston said.

He started doing T-shirts on a dare when he and his friends at Florida State couldn’t find anything appropriate for their group to wear. Johnston created a design, printed it, and a new company, Red Letter 9, soon followed. The name is derived from the version of the Bible in which the words of Jesus are printed in red, and from the first number of the address, 9, where Johnston lived while a FSU student. It was founded from a desire to provide Christian apparel and products to be used all over the world to spread the gospel and to honor Jesus Christ.

On the website, http://www.redletter9.com , Johnston said, “We believe that when we put a message, design or scripture on a T-shirt that it becomes more than a cotton garment, it is a witnessing tool to the world. Isaiah 55:11 says, ‘So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth; it shall not return to Me void.’ We believe when we put His word on a T-shirt and send it out to the world, that it will not be returned void.”

Johnston explained how the T-shirts and other products are affecting others.

“You can’t just walk into Kroger with a Bible, but the person in line behind you can read your shirt,” Johnston said. “We’re making a difference, one shirt at a time.”

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