Johnny Keeton Profile

Johnny in his home office in California

If you’re part of the textile industry chances are you would have heard of or had the pleasure of crossing paths with Johnny Keeton with his chilled out, sociable and easy going persona.  He’s been in the industry for some 40 odd years and loves the design side and the colour, as Johnny says “we're definitely in the colour business”. I’m sure he’s seen some colour and designs go out and come back into vogue as time would have it.

Born in Texas and now living in California, Johnny spent a good chunk of his career in New York. He started in the textile industry when he was 25 and given his father was also in the textile industry, fabric and the business of textiles has always been a part of his life.  

His Dad had a textile wholesaler business based in Texas with five branches across the country. After graduating from college Johnny had a stint in an investment and stockbroking business, before going to work for his Dad at the age of 25 as a Warehouse Manager in California. It was in the seventies so you had to have a warehouse in each part of the country if you wanted to grow your business, because you couldn't ship fabric from one place to the other.  There were no courier services...imagine that?! 

Time marched on and when courier services became more widely available across the country, the business was reduced to one warehouse instead of five so Johnny was out of work in California. He had the option of heading back to Texas but didn’t think his then girlfriend, now wife, would want to go to Texas.  This prompted some outside-the-box thinking about how he could use his skills, industry experience and existing network to build a business with global reach.

Johnny started representing mills, beginning with a wool mill in Mexico, speaking Spanish was an advantage and led to going to other destinations to find suppliers or clients. 

On reflection, he feels that finding yourself in a tricky situation or at a significant cross road forces you to think laterally….a bit like TexSquare going digital as an innovative way of dealing with the pandemic.  Pre-pandemic, Johnny would ordinarily have spent three out of four weeks a month traveling to trade fairs, going to see clients and showing ranges of fabrics in person.  With travel no longer an option, TexSquare’s digital offering was born. The future looks bright!