Chris+Willis

=Decal Entrepreneur Chris Willis=
 * When you watch an NFL game there's a good chance that the easy-to-remove vinyl decals on the players' helmets were made by **Athletic Decals ** of Houston, which supplies a typical team with 750 decals a year. **The insight**: While working at a friend's **Alabama** print shop in the 1980s, Chris Willis realized that adhesive vinyl, which doesn't leave behind sticky residue, was ideal for helmet decals. Chris' boss at the time told him "you can't just call up NFL teams and expect to do business with them." Willis waited for his boss to go on vacation, then called Dallas information and got through to the Cowboys' equipment manager. Within three years, the print shop was supplying half the teams in the NFL. Willis started his own decal company in 1999. Athletic Decals produces annual revenues of $1.25 million using 10 full-time employees who screen and die-cut decals and an 8,000-square-foot production facility that it rents in Houston. In addition to selling decals to most NFL teams, it also supplies them to 500 sporting goods dealers in the U.S.

Company website: @http://www.athleticdecals.com/. See also this interview with ESPN from October, 2005. || || (Sources: Inc.com , 2/3/13; Hoovers.com; ESPN.go.com, accessed 2/3/13))