For Kathy Swantko, a 1969 NDSU graduate with a bachelor’s degree in textiles and clothing, her love for textiles started at an early age and has since led her to a lifelong career in the industry.
Kathy Swantko, a 1969 NDSU graduate with a bachelor’s degree in textiles and clothing, recently announced the launch of a new website which aims to provide students across the United States in K-12 and college the resources they need to learn about textiles, promote career paths in the textile industry and help develop the next generation of leaders in the workforce.
The new online tool is part of FabricLink Network, a networking/education resource for all things related to consumer textile education and product promotion that Swantko founded in 1995. Since its inception Swantko, the current president of FabricLink Network, has developed a total of three websites with the help from her husband, Tom, that provide educational resources on the trade-to-consumer and trade-to-trade side of the textile industry.
The latest website centers on trade-to-student and teacher education by providing family and consumer science and CTE programs the opportunity to promote the career paths available in the textiles industry. A common challenge is most young students aren’t thinking about textile careers due to the lack sufficient education about the opportunities.
“It is much needed education for both the textile industry and the North Dakota public schools,” Swantko said.
For Swantko, a love for textiles started at an early age and has since led her to a lifelong career in the industry.
“I love textiles, and I have always loved textiles from the time I sewed my first apron project on the ‘BIG’ sewing machine when I was in first grade. So, I always knew that my career would involve textiles in some way. I also knew from an early age that I would attend NDSU and major in textiles and clothing. However, I just wasn’t sure early-on what pathway I would take and how my career would evolve,” she said.
After starting out in retail department store management in Minneapolis in the early 70s, Swantko said her dream was to pursue a textile career in New York City. She said her degree from NDSU helped her throughout her career from staging educational consumer-sewing presentations, giving textile education seminars in major department stores for management/sales associates and writing textile articles for various textile trade publications.
“I credit NDSU and my home economics and textile education background and professors, Emily Reynolds and Alice Rising, along with the required NDSU textile degree courses in textile fibers, knitting/weaving construction, sewing construction, economics, English/grammar and writing, for obtaining my textiles and apparel B.S. degree,” she said. “This knowledge gave me the background that I needed to pursue and achieve every level of my textile career.
“Now in semi-retirement and after 25 years of the world sourcing textiles offshore from China and Southeast Asia, the development of TheTextileGateway has given me the ability to give back to the struggling U.S. domestic textile industry, to help and inspire a new generation of workers in the creation of innovative textile advancements, just as I was inspired by textiles throughout my life.”
