Shirt Success

T-shirts aren't sexy, says Barry Fox, but they sure do sell.

In fact, Fox and his wife, Jessica, sold $1.5 million worth of T-shirts to U.S. Army and Air Force bases worldwide in 2013. That's up 25% from $1.2 million in 2012 sales, and more than threefold since 2001, when they bought the business and it had $400,000 in annual sales. The couple actually sells a variety of apparel, including T-shirts, shorts, sweatshirts and jackets through more than 200 contracts with the Army & Air Force Exchange Service.

The Foxes are the lead sales team at Life Safety International. The company is a subsidiary of Sarasota-based Koala Tee, a 24-employee, $2.8 million T-shirt embroidery and printing business. Life Safety, also based in Sarasota, sells original designs of T-shirts printed by Koala Tee employees. Koala Tee buys the blank shirts from several U.S. distributors and then does all the artwork, screens, decorating and embroidering in-house.