Blog
For another year, Townsend Leather has been named as a BEST PLACE TO WORK in the entire Capital Region by the Albany Business Review! We are close to a decade of these meaningful awards that recognize the people we are and the way we do our work. It is such a deep honor to be awarded this way, because we value our Partnership together more than anything, knowing that the best leather in the world is made by the best people in the world who are happy, engaged, trusted, cared for, and celebrated together. Winning Best Place To Work again just gives us one more notification of validation that we do truly have the best team in the world, and we are so proud of it.
The team that accepted the award on behalf of Townsend exemplified perfectly who we are and why we won. Our team is driven, joy-filled, fun, engaged, and ready to take action. You can see it in the teeny video clip and in the photos, they are awesome Partners part of an awesome team.
* Please note we take all covid precautions seriously and do everything we can to keep our team and everyone around us safe and healthy, the video and photos were taken at a vaccination-only BPTW award event a few weeks ago.
This award comes from employees’ written words and survey feedback. It is not a popularity vote, it is not a bought message, it is direct from the hearts and minds of the people in the middle of it.
This is why an award like this is especially meaningful. Townsend’s own Partners combined with the input and evaluation of outside lookers-on, took everything into account, compared everything with all the companies in the entire region, and deemed that Townsend Leather earned the title of Best Place to Work.
We love our work, we love who we do it for, and we love our team. This is an award each of us on the team gets to own a piece of and carry proudly wherever we go.
If you want to join our award-winning, Best Place To Work team, you can find out more about our openings and apply with us at www.townsendleather.com/job
https://www.bizjournals.com/albany/news/2021/10/30/best-places-to-work-2021-all-winners.html
This past year was complicated and challenging. But, it was also joy-filled and amazing.
A too-fast, photo-pile of an incredible year at Townsend Leather. This is a compilation of a full year’s worth of photos of Townsend Leather Partners doing amazing things together. This year was complicated and challenging, but it was also joy-filled and amazing. And we did it all, together. Take a couple of minutes to let the past year just wash over you, in our blurview video.
I Got A Job I Love.
Along with so many other great people! We love what we do, who we do it with, and who we do it for.
Get a job you love too! ❤️ Join me at Townsend Leather, the award-winning Best Place to Work and Top Workplace!
Townsend is proud to have the best jobs in the area and make the best leather in the world, and YOU can join me here.
Townsend Leather loves our community and is proud to be crafted in the Glove Cities. We are growing as a company and are really excited about the team and culture we have cultivated over the years. We are at a pivotal moment of huge growth and are so excited for our future. We are currently looking to fill about 12-20 more of our hands-on, hearts-in leather-crafting production careers.
For many years, we have been named a Top Place to Work and the Best Place to Work, with 40 Under 40 award-winning leadership, and even more special awards, just for our company culture. We take the act of creating a team very seriously and hope to provide lifelong jobs for our community.
We offer highly competitive pay, bonuses, an impressive full benefits package, and we are looking, right now, to grow our Production Team and Shoe Leather Teams as well as some other areas, and everywhere across Townsend has a lot of growth potential for the future; despite the current times and challenges, we are super busy and are projecting even more growth in the coming years.
- Townsend is a many times winners of Top Workplace and Best Place to Work – recognized as the best place to work in the capital region by not 1 but 2 places that do this stuff for a living. Townsend is the Best Place to Work.
- We love what we do, who we do it for, and who we do it with. Our company culture is like no other. We make the world’s best leather, and we do it as a team. Making the world’s best anything is cool, making the world’s best leather is beyond cool.
See more about our career opportunities at our Job page:
www.townsendleather.com/job
See what Townsend Partners have to say about LOVING their job.
And if you are a Townsend Partner or fan, add your loves to the list!
Thank you, thank you Townsend Leather!
leather for customers around the world here in Johnstown, New York.
“Hire great people and give them freedom to be awesome.”
Townsend Leather is so FULL of love. We work by and with our hearts and it shows all around. Here is just a glimpse of the love and hearts in and around Townsend.
Maybe you’ve seen our “Get a Job You Love ❤️” billboards around, or maybe you’ve been to an Amsterdam Mohawks game and saw Townsend there, or maybe you’ve come across us online somewhere – and you might have wondered what all those icons/stickers/little weirds were.
Each one has a story, a Townsend story.

Townsend’s leadership team is full of award winners, notably 3 distinguished as 40 Under 40 winners, with Tim Becket as the most recent recipient: https://townsendleather.com/2020/lifestyle/40-under-40
For many years, Townsend Leather has continuously won awards for our Team, our culture, and our Leadership – making us the Top Work Place and Best Place To Work: https://townsendleather.com/2020/lifestyle/topworkplace
We believe in our company, in our people, and in our culture. We believe in making it better every day. Awards like these are not necessary, they aren’t something we specifically strive for, but to be recognized for the things that we hold near and dear to our hearts, feels good: https://townsendleather.com/2018/lifestyle/townsend-top-work-place

Be Excellent to Each Other is a credo we gladly live by at Townsend. We are Partners in this together, crafting side by side and continually being excellent, together. You can buy this as a shirt and proudly wear your excellence: www.bonfire.com/be-excellent-to-each-other-2/
Townsend is an equal opportunity employer and is a proud supporter of the HRC and its mission. We are heartfelt intent on balance, growth, and innovation for all, especially those that face marginalization and unfair barriers.
We are Stronger Together. We love our team. So we do everything we can to support one another. We have a “Hides of Hope” Partners supporting Partners system where we can work together to help each other through tough times and celebrate with each other in great times, our Stronger Together shirts even help support our system: https://www.bonfire.com/stronger1609829160together/
We love our Glove Cities community. Which is why are proud to give our around $10,000 in local community support each year. We love hugs and this is one small we we can gift out and hug our community: https://townsendleather.com/contact/hug
Thumbs-ups are the best, right?! We love high-fives, air-high-fives, hugs, and every kind of hand-gesture-celebration! Sometimes we are just feeling thumbs-upy!
We love t-shirts at Townsend! We love to rock and we love shirts. We love to rock so much we made a shirt about it, we love shirts so much, we made a website for them! https://www.townsendleathershirts.com/

Townsend Leather makes the world’s best upholstery leather. We are masters of cowhide, and that is not a brag, it is just a fact. Our team is the world’s best at crafting leather. Our team is cool. This cow is cool, just check out their sunglasses (that’s how you can tell they are cool), everyone at Townsend is always wearing metaphorical sunglasses because they are endlessly cool.
Townsend is also full of goofballs, shirts, leather, and fun. Some of our absolutely legendary Partners are known as the “who what where guys”. And can often be found severing as our own 3 stooges crew: https://youtu.be/u5OCvnLdjMs

At Townsend, we love what we do, we love who we do it for, and we love who we do it with. Everything we do is based on passion and craft. We are a team of thinkers and problem-solvers, innovators, goal-setters, question-askers.
We only seek out doers, action-takers, and awesome people. So, since we look for those things, our team is already staffed with the greatest people in the area. When you join our team, you will be surrounded by the greatest people with the biggest hearts.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://townsendleather.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Townsend-Is-Hiring-SendOut_full-print_august.pdf” title=”Townsend Is Hiring SendOut_full print_august”]


Love is love – show your love, in allyship.
Earlier this month we shared ways you can show Pride in your leather designs with Townsend, www.townsendleather.com/pride-2021, in everything we do at Townsend, we deeply love leather, but we know what is even more important is, people. So we also wanted to share our passion and pride for humans.
This year we continued and increased our support of the HRC and their valiant mission.
“The Human Rights Campaign envisions a world where every member of the LGBTQ family has the freedom to live their truth without fear, and with equality under the law. We empower our 3 million members and supporters to mobilize against attacks on the most marginalized people in our community. Equality for ALL not for some.”
‘Equality for all‘ is an idea we can fully and strongly stand behind. It is an idea we try hard to express out to our community. Sometimes the impact you have on others stays invisible, but sometimes you get lucky and you meet someone who is brave and willing to be vulnerable. Sometimes you meet someone like Sabrina, who volunteers to share the story of her first days at Townsend, what it meant to her, and what it continues to be for her.
Sabrina joined Townsend Leather in March and quickly become a Partner associated with greatness. Sabrina has impressed everyone with focused dedication to work, speed, and a fun-to-be-around attitude. Sabrina is a person who brings people together and we are so glad she is part of the team.

“When I first came to Townsend, I was really scared. I heard great things about the place, but I didn’t know if they were true or if I was even going to be liked for who I was.
But, I was happily surprised that Townsend truly was such a loving and caring environment.
On my first day, I was really slow and kept apologizing to my trainer, but she kept brushing my apologies aside and encouraging me, telling me that I was doing great. That day I even met the president of the company, Jared, and he was also so lovely, nice, and encouraging. It was such a relief to know that the people were really like a family.
It was because of this warm, family kindness that I finally opened up to people about being pansexual. I always hid it before, because I was afraid of being judged and hated for it, but the people at Townsend welcomed me and I even met other people who were gay/bisexual. It was so nice.
I started learning more about the LGBTQ+ community and accepting who I was. I learned it was okay to like men, women, non-binary people, transgender people, etc; and I learned, I am really, really glad I came to work here.”
And so are all of us.
Townsend is an equal opportunity employer. We are heartfelt intent on balance, growth, and innovation for all, especially those that face marginalization and unfair barriers. We hope everyone can find a place they feel welcomed, where they feel like they are with family, and we will continue striving to be that place for as many people as we can.
The impact of covid will be felt still for years to come, in tangible ways like shipping difficulties and supply chains, and in invisible ways like in our hearts as we each carry the heavy weight of the death and emotional toll this global pandemic wreaked upon us all.

Townsend has always been a forward-looking and positive-focused company, so we are excited for a brighter future and this moment in the present for reflection and celebration. 70% of New York staters have been vaccinated, which means we can confidently remove some restrictions. We can feel a moment of peace in knowing we have turned a corner.
VISITORS: Due to a high level of vaccinations, great actions of so many people looking out for each other, and improved circumstances, we are now fully open to thoughtfully-scheduled visits. Go to www.townsendleather.com/appointment to schedule a visit.
SHIPPING/BOOKING: Lingering impacts from covid will burden the industry for a long time to come, but with our team’s careful foresight, experienced aptitude, and impassioned care for providing to our customers – we can now confidently book orders to ship in 5-6 weeks for new production.
We also always have In-Stock leather on our shelves ready for your designs. So if even greater speed is of critical importance, browse our vast selection of in-stock leathers to find what we can ship you right now.

Each year we take one week to exclusively focus on maintenance and reproduction reinvigoration, so once again Townsend will be closed for production on Monday, July 5 through Friday, July 9, returning on July 12. Our office, for orders, samples, communication, and the other plethora of things our Customer Service team can do for you, will remain open through that week.


But, there is no going “back to normal”. The world has changed and we have changed along with it. Some of the hardest challenges we have faced and some of the proudest moments have all occurred over the past 15 months. We have grown and learned and we know, the best way forward is to take stock of what we experienced, note what we learned, and apply it forward.
Our hard-wrought lessons will guide us to even better days ahead. Improved communication, even greater tools at hand, enhanced processing, new efficient and exciting machinery, cleaning and safety enhancements… all are things that we delved into and will reap benefits from for still years to come.

While we continue to grow and continue to learn, we are putting our lessons into practice. Our covid-specific-magnified-
safety restrictions are being removed because it is now safe, but our learning and enhancements that have come from this time will always be in place. Therefore, we are excited to say, we are now fully open to thoughtfully-scheduled visitors.
Come for a tour, come for a visit, come for learning – just submit an appointment form to get scheduled. www.townsendleather.com/appointment

Through hard times, good times, distance, or closeness, we are always together in partnership.
– Townsend Leather

Love is love – show your love, in leather.
Townsend is and has always been a company that celebrates color, freedom of thoughts, personal expression, and inclusivity of all humans. We live in a diverse, multicultural world, where everyone should feel safe expressing themselves.
Life is more beautiful when love comes in many colors and this month we will be celebrating this in many ways.
Here’s to loving proudly and living colorfully 💖🧡💛💚💙💜!
Show your love and pride in your designs with Townsend Leather, through our colorful standard product lines, our brand new Digital Print options, with specialty effect leathers, or even right on your device desktop.
Some ways you can show your love and love your leather:
1) Browse a selection of Pride rainbow-inspired leather samples from our vast selection of standard products.

2) Request a custom-curated Rainbow-inspired Townsend Leather Sample Set
3) Get an exclusive first-hand look at one of our newest leather offerings, Digitally Printed leather. Printed with colorful Pride designs.
4) Download a Pride-themed leather background image for your computer or mobile device.
Let us know the ways you celebrate Pride and share your colorful designs with us, www.instagram.com/townsendleather/
Get a job you love! ❤️ With Townsend Leather, the award-winning Best Place to Work and Top Workplace!
Townsend is proud to have the best jobs in the area and make the best leather in the world, and YOU can join us.

Townsend Leather loves our community and is proud to be crafted in the Glove Cities. We are growing as a company and are really excited about the team and culture we have cultivated over the years. We are at a pivotal moment of huge growth and are so excited for our future. We are currently looking to fill about 12-20 more of our hands-on, hearts-in leather-crafting production careers.
For many years, we have been named a Top Place to Work and the Best Place to Work, with 40 Under 40 award-winning leadership, and even more special awards, just for our company culture. We take the act of creating a team very seriously and hope to provide lifelong jobs for our community.
We offer highly competitive pay, bonuses, and an impressive full benefits package and we are looking, right now, to grow our Production Team and Shoe Leather Teams as well as some other areas, and everywhere across Townsend has a lot of growth potential for the future; despite the current times and challenges, we are super busy and we are projecting even more growth in the coming years.
See more about our career opportunities at our Job page:
www.townsendleather.com/job
Maybe you’ve seen our “Get a Job You Love ❤️” billboards around, or maybe you’ve been to an Amsterdam Mohawks game and saw Townsend there, or maybe you’ve come across us online somewhere – and you might have wondered what all those icons/stickers/little weirds were.
Each one has a story, a Townsend story.
Townsend’s leadership team is full of award winners, notably 3 distinguished as 40 Under 40 winners, with Tim Becket as the most recent recipient: https://townsendleather.com/2020/lifestyle/40-under-40
For many years, Townsend Leather has continuously won awards for our Team, our culture, and our Leadership – making us the Top Work Place and Best Place To Work: https://townsendleather.com/2020/lifestyle/topworkplace
We believe in our company, in our people, and in our culture. We believe in making it better every day. Awards like these are not necessary, they aren’t something we specifically strive for, but to be recognized for the things that we hold near and dear to our hearts, feels good: https://townsendleather.com/2018/lifestyle/townsend-top-work-place

Be Excellent to Each Other is a credo we gladly live by at Townsend. We are Partners in this together, crafting side by side and continually being excellent, together. You can buy this as a shirt and proudly wear your excellence: www.bonfire.com/be-excellent-to-each-other-2/
Townsend is an equal opportunity employer and is a proud supporter of the HRC and its mission. We are heartfelt intent on balance, growth, and innovation for all, especially those that face marginalization and unfair barriers.
We are Stronger Together. We love our team. So we do everything we can to support one another. We have a “Hides of Hope” Partners supporting Partners system where we can work together to help each other through tough times and celebrate with each other in great times, our Stronger Together shirts even help support our system: https://www.bonfire.com/stronger1609829160together/
We love our Glove Cities community. Which is why are proud to give our around $10,000 in local community support each year. We love hugs and this is one small we we can gift out and hug our community: https://townsendleather.com/contact/hug
Thumbs-ups are the best, right?! We love high-fives, air-high-fives, hugs, and every kind of hand-gesture-celebration! Sometimes we are just feeling thumbs-upy!
We love t-shirts at Townsend! We love to rock and we love shirts. We love to rock so much we made a shirt about it, we love shirts so much, we made a website for them! https://www.townsendleathershirts.com/

Townsend Leather makes the world’s best upholstery leather. We are masters of cowhide, and that is not a brag, it is just a fact. Our team is the world’s best at crafting leather. Our team is cool. This cow is cool, just check out their sunglasses (that’s how you can tell they are cool), everyone at Townsend is always wearing metaphorical sunglasses because they are endlessly cool.
Townsend is also full of goofballs, shirts, leather, and fun. Some of our absolutely legendary Partners are known as the “who what where guys”. And can often be found severing as our own 3 stooges crew: https://youtu.be/u5OCvnLdjMs

At Townsend, we love what we do, we love who we do it for, and we love who we do it with. Everything we do is based on passion and craft. We are a team of thinkers and problem-solvers, innovators, goal-setters, question-askers.
We only seek out doers, action-takers, and awesome people. So, since we look for those things, our team is already staffed with the greatest people in the area. When you join our team, you will be surrounded by the greatest people with the biggest hearts.
[pdf-embedder url=”https://townsendleather.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Townsend-Is-Hiring-Info-Pack-for-Job-Fair_5_14_21.pdf” title=”Townsend Is Hiring Info Pack for Job Fair_5_14_21″]


















































