Founding PFYH Alpaca
Bridget Reid and Lizann Grupalo stand out a mile on the factory floor. Their tailored outfits, matching Tiffany bracelets, killer heels and perfect blowouts look straight out of the high-powered corporate world. Yet one of their favourite places to be is ensconced deep inside this north Toronto industrial plant.
Leather is everywhere: Rusty red sheaths and mustard-yellow skins are slung across six-foot-tall easels; rich mahogany cowhides are spread out across wide tables; and reams of butter-soft ebony leather gleam under the fluorescent lights of the workshop floor. The entire building smells of expensive new car.
Grupalo, a 43-year-old bubbly brunette, stops to chat with a worker sitting at a sewing machine who is painstakingly stitching a large bag. The quality of the work is so detailed it comes as a surprise to discover that the bag is inside out — few will even notice this handiwork. Grupalo signals to Reid, and the two confer over the bag. After a brief discussion, the women nod in agreement.
It’s doubtful Reid or Grupalo thought “potential business partner” when they first met each other in a knitting class, but after becoming friends they eventually did form a partnership. PFYH (“Peace For Your Heart”) Alpaca produces a collection of “classic with a twist” handbags and wraps. The bags are entirely Canadian-made from Italian leather and Peruvian baby-alpaca fleece and, because Reid and Grupalo wanted their new venture to be about more than just selling bags, the company returns a percentage of every sale to local families in the highlands of Peru.
Making their own opportunities
It’s a big leap to southeastern Peru from the boardroom of a multinational computer corporation, but after almost 20 years as a senior manager at IBM Canada, Reid, also 43, was ready for a change. After turning 40, the spoils of a successful career in IT began to wear thin, and she became increasingly disheartened with the high-pressure grind in an industry with which she felt little affinity. She took a leave of absence to regroup. “I had an arts degree, and here I was working in a software development laboratory,” says Reid. “I just didn’t feel fulfilled, or that I was making a difference with the work I was doing.”
Grupalo, meanwhile, loved her former job as a successful regional sales manager for a large wine company in the United States. But after marrying a Canadian and moving to Ontario in 2005, she found herself in limbo, unable to work until her visa was approved. Once it came through, she discovered a career on a similar scale didn’t exist here. “I just couldn’t find the right spot for myself,” she says. “My husband encouraged me to take some time out and look for other opportunities.” She decided to explore her creative side and took a handbag-making seminar and some knitting classes.
“I’d been using the classes to make unique gifts for two of my closest friends,” says Grupalo, and when an acquaintance saw her bags, she asked Grupalo if she could place an order — and pay her for her work. “I was blown away,” she remembers. “I called Bridget and said, ‘We could do something with this.””
