New safety vest programs bring more skilled work to North Texas

On Envision’s sewing floor in Farmers Branch, employees who are blind or have low vision cut, sew, inspect, and ship safety vests built entirely in the United States. This year, two very different customers turned to Envision for that work: Oncor, the electric utility that serves much of North Texas, and the Dallas Founder Lions Club, a service club more than a century old. 

Oncor came to Envision after a previous supplier fell behind on deliveries of flame-resistant vests for its line crews. Envision had never built flame-resistant garments before. Rather than turn the work away, the team sourced and qualified the flame-resistant materials, configured the production line, and took over the program, shipping an initial 831 vests as a three-month supply.  

Within two months, reorders ran 45 percent above forecast, with 1,213 units delivered, and the account has since opened conversations about hard hats and safety eyewear. Every one of those vests represents skilled, hands-on work performed by people who are blind or have low vision. 

 “When customers bring work like this to Envision, it does more than fill a production schedule,” said Sebastian Zahr, Chief Revenue & Strategy Officer at Envision. “It creates steady, skilled work for employees who are blind or have low vision and gives our team the chance to keep building the quality, timing and service customers count on.” 

For the Dallas Founder Lions Club, the order carried a second meaning. The club helped charter Lions Clubs International at its 1917 convention in Dallas. In 1925, Helen Keller stood before the Lions and asked them to become “knights of the blind.” A century later, the same club buys its service vests from a manufacturer where people who are blind or have low vision make up the majority of the team that builds them. The cause the Lions took up in 1925 is the work Envision does every day. 

That workforce is the heart of the operation, not a footnote to it. On the Farmers Branch floor, skilled employees who are blind or have low vision build both customers’ orders on adapted equipment and through processes refined over decades. Envision is a full-service domestic manufacturer, Berry- and TAA-compliant on its government work and fully made in the United States. For customers, that means a deep, trained, and hard-to-replicate team. For the people who do the work, it means skilled, meaningful employment in a market where good jobs can be hard to find. 

The two orders run on the same floor, to the same standard. For Oncor, Envision is a trusted domestic manufacturing option. For the Lions, it is that and a return to a century-old promise. For everyone who supports Envision’s mission, both are proof of the same truth: when skilled employees who are blind or have low vision are given the right tools, processes and opportunities, they produce competitive American products that companies keep coming back for. That is what Envision’s integrated mission makes possible.