Pete Roberts is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ORIGIN, an American apparel and footwear company built around a mission to rebuild the industrial skills, supply chains, and manufacturing capabilities that were lost to decades of offshoring. He founded ORIGIN in 2011, initially importing products from Pakistan. After being burned by an overseas manufacturer, Mr. Roberts changed course. In 2012, he cut timber from his property in rural Maine, built a small timber-frame factory behind his house, found two old American-made Singer sewing machines, and began manufacturing jiu-jitsu uniforms himself. What started as an attempt to make a single product in America became a much larger mission to rebuild the knowledge and infrastructure required to manufacture here again.

Over the next decade, Mr. Roberts and his team worked their way deeper into the supply chain, resurrecting dormant machinery, relearning lost manufacturing processes, and building domestic capacity across textiles, apparel, and footwear. Today, ORIGIN manufactures denim, workwear, boots and sneakers, and performance apparel through its operations in Maine and a facility in Asheboro, North Carolina. 

Mr. Roberts is also Founder of JOCKO FUEL and a third-degree Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt. He has become an outspoken advocate for American manufacturing and for a new generation of vertically integrated brands that view domestic production not simply as a marketing claim but as a competitive advantage. He believes that America can still make world-class products, but rebuilding manufacturing requires more than bringing factories home; it requires rebuilding the skills, people, machinery, supply chains, and culture that make those factories possible.