About Us

I often get asked what inspired me to create Parachute Promise, and I have really struggled with that answer, because it's such a deeply personal question. If I’d created something along the lines of a better light bulb, or a better way to wash your clothes, I could point to some eureka moment of which the product was the result.

I started out just wanting to tell a few people who were close to me how grateful I was they had helped me to just keep going through a very difficult time. They held my hand and kept reminding me that with some things in this life, the only way out is through. They reminded me that no matter what was happening, we could get through it together. There wasn’t anything I could give them to symbolize how vitally important their support was during that time, and so the first creative seeds of Parachute Promise were born.

At the time, I was working with a gentleman named Dean Baxter. Dean always wore this interestingly shaped piece of metal on a leather cord. It wasn’t anything I had seen before, and it just looked like it was significant. Dean was a skydiver. He said that particular little piece of metal had saved his life a little over 500 times. I was fascinated by it. He explained how the little pin was all about timing, that a failure of its function either too soon or too late would have equally disastrous results. Many members of the skydiving community wear these curved release pins, also called “closing pins,” and this tiny piece of metal quite literally saves their lives.

I am not a skydiver. I would never jump out of a perfectly good airplane on purpose. What I was hearing and seeing as he was telling me this story was how life is its own form of free fall. So much of it is about timing—the wrong or right set of circumstances on either side can have either beautiful or disastrous results. I realized that the friends I had were right on time and were, quite literally, saving my life. They were, in their own way, my parachute. I found a manufacturer of these closing pins and ordered five. Four were intended as gifts, and one was intended for me. After all, I had survived the free fall as well.

I tied a piece of suede to each pin and gave them to my friends while thanking them for providing me with a soft landing. One of those recipients was so touched by it, she called me the next day not only to thank me, but to suggest that I create these for others. That is what you see today, the results of those events and that conversation. My family, friends and I started making these necklaces, with a little parachute release pin and a powerful message of thanks we hoped would find its way into the world.

But this isn’t about a product, this is about an idea. It's a representation of something really big and very difficult to articulate. In simple terms, it's an expression of gratitude for people who have had an impact on your life, but it’s bigger than that. At its core is something that allows people to connect on the deepest level to the most meaningful people in their lives. It asks the question, Who matters in your life? And why? And it encourages you to risk telling those people how much they mean to you. Parachute Promise is a vehicle that allows that to happen.

This is a company about stories: my story, the company’s story, and more importantly other people’s stories. Each of my products comes with a serial number. On the bottom of every tin is an invitation to visit the Pin Stories section of the website to share your story about why you gave a pin or why you received one. Those are things I want to know. The point is that we all have stories; we're all traveling along doing the best job we can at living. There are people who are making this journey with us, and they matter.

Over the last few years I've come to fully understand on a deep level that something about what I have created is truly resonating with people, and that has been pretty powerful for me to acknowledge. And the idea of this company is a very real representation of me and who I am, and that has been pretty powerful to own.

My brother and I say that Parachute Promise has the "wildflower effect" built into it. It has a life of its own, and it grows, from one person to the next. This company is very much about the human connection we all share.

Our products are hand tied by our closest friends and family.

Toll Free Order Line: 1-866-867-3891
Email: sales@parachutepromise.com