Walter Mitty inspires local entrepreneur to make a wallet to weather life's journeys

By day, Bob Orchard is immersed in high tech, as the president and interaction/user experience designer at Tinypint, a web agency in Grand Rapids.

By night, Orchard is immersed in no tech, as a leather worker and craftsman behind his line of wallets being sold through his new venture, Grand Rapids Wallet Co.

Orchard was inspired to make wallets when he and his wife were planning a trip to South America this winter. "She had long been telling me to 'find a hobby' and I started considering what I'd do. Models and painting for board games, maybe I'd do woodworking or woodturning or even possibly miniature scene building."  

But his muse ended up coming from an iconic dreamer. "After watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and seeing the wallet the main character received in the movie with 'Life's Motto' stamped in it, I decided I wanted to make a wallet that would weather the most of life and be with me as I start traveling more and more."

His design was based personal experience, one where he frequently gives and receives business card and primarily uses plastic instead of dollars. "I needed a wallet that was flexible enough to manage cash but get out of the way if you didn't have any," he says.

Orchard's first-batch wallets were handmade at his office in the GR Makers space, where the collaborative ethos of the maker spirit provided a catalyst for a lengthy process of creating his wallets. "Harbinger Leathers on the 4th floor of our building has been a huge help in providing unused materials and encouraging me to try making my first wallet.   Each wallet, when producing one at a time, which is all I've done so far, takes roughly 3 hours end-to-end to produce."

While The Grand Rapids Wallet Co. remains a side project, Orchard has been able to apply his tech skills to create a marketing site and laser-cutting template that will allow him to scale the business if the demand is there. "The leatherwork got me more and more excited and people started asking if they could order them for Christmas gifts. After putting together a brand and business plan, I decided I could do it and opened up sales for orders," Orchard says. "If there's enough demand I can translate my laser-cutting template to dies to expand my production process and increase quantity while ensuring they're nothing but the highest quality."

To learn more more about the Grand Rapids Wallet Co., you can visit the Facebook page here.

Writer: John Rumery, Innovation and Jobs News Editor.