Chris Hancock

Chris Hancock

Telephone: 210-674-0511

When Chris Hancock, co-owner and manager of Kel-Lac Uniforms Inc., was thinking about opening a second store, he mulled over the wisdom of the idea with a restaurant owner and a publisher.

But this contract with Bexar County, says Chris Hancock, vice president of Kel-Lac, is a first."What this is going to do is drive local traffic to our store.So it's a brand new customer base for us," Hancock says.

The company is also continuing to expand its subsidiary, myFORCE Apparel & Specialty Shop.Last week, it opened its fourth specialty retail shop at 7012 Highway 90 West.The store offers T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs, trophies, screen-printing, personalized embroidery and other military memorabilia for family of the military personnel.

"The idea would be to capture that customer base by appealing to the American tradition of support of the troops and pride in the red, white and blue," Hancock says.

The company already has three of these stores on Lackland Air Force Base, which it originally opened through its contract with the Army Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) to provide T-shirts to basic trainees.

Currently, Hancock says, the company has one branded store that operates under the Kel-Lac name and two non-branded stores at Lackland.The company is looking to negotiate a long-term contract with AAFES to operate under the myForce name at Lackland."Our goal is to try to brand that product so that it would become a brand with the Army Air Force Exchange Service," Hancock adds.