Patrick Mate
CEO & Co-founder, Patriot Jean Co.
Podcast Episode Release Date:
01 December
Beyond the Article: Hear the full exclusive interview with Patrick Mate, CEO and Co-founder of Patriot Jean Co., on the VCEO Podcast. Hear how Patrick found an opportunity to gain a market share in denim jeans by sourcing and manufacturing entirely in the United States.
The Unexpected Journey of a U.S. Army Veteran Building an American Denim Brand
Different Than Expected
The Five-Minute Pivot
When Patrick Mate separated from the U.S. Army after working in missile and space defense, he assumed he would go into a career in programming or technology. After all, these were the jobs that most directly aligned with his degree in computer science. He never expected to one day launch his own company.
Following his final military assignment, Patrick landed an interview with Raytheon, a major defense contractor in aerospace and defense. Working for a defense company felt “easy, seamless, and quite natural,” Patrick told VCEO. However, only five minutes into his first interview, Patrick had a sudden realization: this job was not what he wanted to do.
Patrick describes the moment: "I kind of took a pause and I told the interviewer, 'I think you're a fantastic company and it sounds really interesting work, but I don't think I'm quite the fit that you're specifically looking for here.'"
However, instead of ending the interview then and there, the recruiter did something unexpected. He told Patrick that Raytheon was still keenly interested in hiring him; they would just need to find the right role. Raytheon flew Patrick out to Tucson to interview with more of the team and eventually hired him into a role that better fit his skills.
Over the next 13 years, Patrick would work in a variety of leadership roles, including systems engineering, analytical work, and eventually project and program management. Reflecting on how he landed the job despite the initial mismatch, Patrick offered this valuable advice: “There's a lot of skills that are transferable. Sometimes it's knowing how to translate that.”
Patrick spent those 13 years leading various departments at Raytheon, learning critical skills from each role. Skills like strategy, supply chain, and program management would become the essential foundation for his next career transition into entrepreneurship.
The Success That Was "Different Than Expected"
Patriot Jean Co. stands today as a powerful testament to the value of Veteran adaptability, community, and craftsmanship. The challenges Patrick overcame—from his first career transition to launching his own company—each held powerful lessons that reinforce the potential of career-transitioning Service Members, Veterans, and their Families.
For those considering their own entrepreneurial venture, Patrick offers direct, practical advice rooted in his personal journey. He insists that the core skills for success are already present: “You've got to have a true belief in yourself. Whether you're starting your own business or whether you're joining a company or a small business, you've got to have a belief in yourself to apply the same two main skills, learning and leading that you have already in the military. So get out there and learn and lead.”
For Patrick, the journey from a U.S. Army Captain to CEO was indeed “different than expected,” but it has proven to be a profoundly rewarding, inspiring adventure, one that serves as an example of success for Veteran entrepreneurs.
From Defense to Denim: Making the Leap into Entrepreneurship
The ultimate career shift for Patrick came when he decided to launch his own venture. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Patrick was eager to support local businesses and had a realization while shopping for jeans. Despite more than 450 million pairs of jeans being sold annually in the U.S., less than three percent are made domestically. This finding gave Patrick an idea: to start a U.S.-based denim company that sources and manufactures jeans 100% in the U.S.
Patrick was clear about the mission: “I wanted everything from cotton seed to denim jeans, everything in between to include zippers, labels, tags, everything, even our custom shipping boxes to be 100% made in the USA.”
Military Mindset, Entrepreneurial Action
This ambitious goal required a skill Patrick honed in the 101st Airborne: assessing a complex challenge, understanding the needed resources, and rapidly mobilizing a support team. Facing a complex business problem, he didn't try to master every detail himself; instead, he built an initial business plan and then sought out mentors with the exact skills needed.
Patrick spent the first two years learning the business from the ground up. He took "denim 101" classes to learn jean construction, design, and shipping, and worked with designers in LA and New York. He made a point of meeting industry leaders to learn how to put together a coast-to-coast supply chain. He recalls a trip to North Carolina: “North Carolina was at one point the heart of denim jeans 40 years ago and would produce millions of pairs of jeans every month. So I went out to that industry to learn.”
However, even with the right team of mentors and industry knowledge, Patrick quickly encountered the brutal reality of domestic production. Sourcing materials 100% within the U.S. and finding reliable partners meant placing minimum orders that were sometimes 10 to 100 times what his small business needed. This high upfront cost was further amplified by Patrick’s decision to self-fund the venture, relying entirely on personal capital.
This choice required adherence to strict financial principles advised by mentors. Patrick explained that financial advisors stressed fundamental principles, such as the need to reinvest every pay raise he gave himself back into the company. “Those principles really have stuck with me and applied to not only being able to raise the capital myself over many, many, many years, but also are key tenets of what we do as a company now, giving back those types of things.” Based on this experience, Patrick advises any veteran looking to start a manufacturing company to radically overestimate capital needs: “Whatever you think you need, it's probably at least 2X.”
This financial pressure came to a head during one such low point: having to repurchase his entire supply chain after a manufacturing stop failed to deliver the quality he needed. Patrick relied on the core mindset of a veteran entrepreneur. He credits the resolve to keep moving with the simple, driving conviction: “You've got to have a true belief in yourself, whether you're starting your own business or whether you're joining a company... you've got to have a belief in yourself.”
The Power of Daily Discipline
This internal conviction was powerfully reinforced by the words of an early veteran mentor. When Patrick shared his detailed business plan, the mentor interrupted him: “Stop... If you're going to do it… do it. Go for it!” The real struggle, the mentor explained, wasn't in the theoretical details, but in the “daily discipline, which develops the habits, which develop the character, right, of you as a person, but also your business as a whole.” This principle became the anchor for Patrick, emphasizing the value of persistence and relationship building. He notes that the military taught him not to be afraid to ask for support and to “keep driving on.”
