Skin in the Game: Saddleback Leather's Mission Far Bigger Than Bags

Dave Munson's company is a means to an end: Christian ministry.

by John Henry

July 7, 2023

1:16 PM

Crystal Wise

Having fulfilled his academic requirements and been deemed biblically competent and spiritually formed, Dave Munson left Multnomah University in Portland, Oregon, with a theology degree in hand and plenty of ambition to do what he had been commanded. That is, make disciples, proclaim the message of salvation, and spread the good news of the kingdom of God, just as Jesus Christ had directed his friends to do. Little did he know at the time that it would be a leather company he founded that would be at the intersection of his ministry, a leather ministry, as he calls it.

The Lord works in mysterious ways, after all.

“He certainly does,” Munson says.

This long, winding tale of Dave Munson’s leather ministry adventure is played out in a corner in the center of Azle at the offices, showroom, and warehouse of Saddleback Leather Co., a thriving enterprise run by Munson, the company’s CEO, and his wife Suzette.

A note from George W. Bush that sits in a frame and hangs on a wall attests to the level of high-profile customers his leather products have attracted. In it the former president is highly complimentary and grateful for the leather luggage he purchased. The “care and craftsmanship” are apparent, Bush wrote.

The operation extends to Mexico where the company’s factory is located. From there the product is shipped to Texas where it finds a spot in the retail showroom or is sent out by way of the various methods of delivery.

The product is high-end stuff made of the thickest leather, but, as Munson says, the company’s mission is to make something so well that “my grandkids would fight over it while I was still warm in the grave.”

That’s why it has a 100-year warranty. Unless, as the company notes, you take the bag shark diving in saltwater and a rivet corrodes. Or an elephant stomps on it and creases the leather, or if a crocodile chomps on it and tears off a D-ring. However, if you want to see how tough this leather is, take a look at this crocodile test in Australia.

In all, Dave says he employs about 200 between the states and Mexico.

Crystal Wise

An expansion of the facilities is in the works, with a new headquarters and warehouse being constructed just minutes away from the current base of operations at 105 Speer St., Suite 4, in Azle. It’ll be complete in about two years, Munson says.

Saddleback is the official leather company of the Texas Rangers. It’s all part of a successful marketing operation. Munson has produced a lot of fun and award-winning marketing campaigns to push the product, including a series of paintings featuring an elderly man and a Saddleback Leather bag. One features the man with Blue.

Who is Blue?

Well, this all started in 1999, with Munson teaching English at a Christian school in western Mexico, with his trusty sidekick, Blue, a beautiful black Labrador retriever he acquired in New Mexico. Blue had been by Munson’s side through some wild adventures. Blue, though he has passed from this place, is the official mascot of Saddleback Leather Co. He remains a prominent feature — a fixture — in Saddleback marketing.

Christ himself, of course, had quite the adventuresome ministry while teaching, preaching, and performing miracles. His travels often involved encounters with diverse people, including the despised tax collectors, religious leaders, and those in need. I’m having trouble ever remembering, however, any encounter with a coked-up federale out to kill him over a real estate commission. Munson was selling real estate.

Munson ultimately “had a moment” with this hitman over Scripture and the one true place to find peace in one’s life. Suffice to say, peace wasn’t to be found as a dirty federale, but rather Christ. Munson doubts it was this man’s road to Damascus, but the federale might have found even a sliver of peace in that moment of time and space. And, of course, Dave lived to tell about it.

Don’t be afraid, Christ instructed.

Anyway, back to teaching English in Mexico.

“When you teach a poor kid English, it changes the whole trajectory of their family,” Munson says. “They're going that way, now they're going that way. So, it's a real big deal.”

While down there, he sought out but couldn’t find a good leather bag to carry his books. In the end, he designed one himself and brought the blueprint to a gentleman who assembled bags. “I sketched out what Indiana Jones would carry, you know.”

He brought the bag back to Portland for a visit. While there, he was asked time and again where he got his bag.

“I thought, like, I might be on to something.”

He had them made periodically to fund his ministry and travels. Marriage to Suzette changed his plans, as marriage has the habit of doing.

Dave, one, needed a steady livelihood. Leather did that, but it also gave him a budget to do good works and spread the good word.

It’s from this spot in northwest Tarrant County that Dave and Suzette, his “hot wife,” as he says, have laid the foundation for what they do away from the business: missionary work.

“I always wanted to be a youth pastor,” says Dave, who relocated with his bride and children to Fort Worth to join other family members who had moved here. “That's it. I didn’t want to waste my life. I thought that if you're not being paid by a church or a para-church organization, like Young Life, then you're kind of a second-class Christian.

“I was wrong.”

Dave and Suzette run a school in Mexico, located adjacent to Saddleback’s factory in Leon. It’s much like the one Dave worked at years prior teaching English. It has an enrollment of 62 students from K-12 and is an affiliate of NOE International, a Christ-centered curriculum offering accredited English programs that prepare students for college.

The school began as English-only curriculum in 2015 but expanded to a full curriculum, K-12, in 2018, fully funded by the Munsons. A daycare was also on the premises but was closed because of Covid.

The principal is a former student of Dave’s all those years ago.

Rwanda has also been a notable location of the Munsons’ ministry. Through Africa New Life Ministries, an organization primarily devoted to helping children in Rwanda, they have sponsored — more like adopted — 14ish sons and daughters. Actually, we’re not really sure how many. Dave is pretty sure Suzette has taken on more children than she has let on.

“I learned a long time ago, a very valuable lesson,” Suzette says. “Like eight, nine, 10 years ago. [Dave] asked me this question: ‘How many kids do we have [in Africa]? And I don't remember what I told them. I said whatever, eight or whatever. And he goes, that's a lot. But that's when it dawned on me, I'm never gonna again tell him a number nor will I count ever again because it's not about a number. I don't really know because I don't count. And that's the truth.”

Many of the children were victims of the Rwandan civil war during the mid-to-late-1990s. Following the assassination of President Habyarimana in 1994, extremist Hutu elements within the government, military, and civilian population initiated a systematic campaign of violence against Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Over a period of approximately 100 days, an estimated 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed in acts of genocide.

Africa New Life is run by Rwandans, says Alan Hotchkiss, U.S. executive director of Africa New Life and, coincidentally, a former classmate of Dave’s at Multnomah. The two reacquainted years after school. Dave remembered Hotchkiss immediately as the guy he’d sometimes catch dozing in a Bible class.

“Maybe you shouldn’t include that in your story,” Hotchkiss jokes. (At least, I think he was joking.)

Hotchkiss says the Munsons first real foray into Africa New Life was a visit by Charles Mugisha, president and co-founder of the organization, to the Munsons’ home in San Antonio in 2008.

“They invited him to come visit and talk about our work,” Hotchkiss says.

Crystal Wise

Mugisha made a presentation to the Munsons, including sharing the Africa New Life’s vision for a seminary, a Bible College, in Rwanda. It was a pressing need, a seminary, in the country. It’s one thing to evangelize, Hotchkiss says. It’s another to do it well by providing good training to pastors to ensure the organization is helping people in a healthy way.

Dave and Suzette asked what was required as far as seed money to get the seminary off the ground. Mugisha told them. It was significant, Hotchkiss says.

“They wrote a check that night,” Hotchkiss says.

“In addition to that, they have come to Rwanda, they spend a ton of time there,” Hotchkiss says. “They’ve sponsored all these kids, they've invested in their lives, above and beyond, you know, just the regular program that we do for education. They've personally invested in these kids' lives and in that sense, almost like adopted them. Not legally, but really made them a part of their family. They've done incredible things for them.

Most, if not all, of the Munsons’ Rwandan kids — Hotchkiss thinks it’s actually about 20 — have grown up and have families of their own. And they’re doing well, Hotchkiss says. Hotchkiss adds that about 500 children have been sponsored by friends of the Munsons, who introduced them to Africa New Life.

“I was thinking,” Dave says of the couple’s decision to commit to Rwanda, “What if Suzette and I were dead on the floor. Our throats were slit and we're laying there and our 3- and 4-year-olds came and tried to wake us up and they couldn't. And they were scared and hungry and wandering the streets. Would I want someone to just send a check to them or would I want someone to go and love them and care for them? That was a pretty obvious answer.”

The Munsons will travel to Rwanda in August for a wedding of one of the “kids.” Suzette will have been over there already between me meeting them and that event.

Dave and Suzette have two children of their own, both teenagers. Dave traveled widely before he married and believed that would slow down once he married. He was wrong about that, too. The family has traveled the world.

The family lives in tents on land not far from the office. They’re big tents that Dave purchased from the East African Canvas Company in Nairobi, Kenya. The tents, which sit on wooden platforms, are designed to house, for example, military troops. Inside, by all appearances, is a house with all the amenities of a modern home, though the weather can be a challenge, both Dave and Suzette say.

They had planned to build a house but found this to be a perfect alternative.

Just another plan that was changed, likely, Dave and Suzette believe, by the hand of God.

That’s how this leather ministry all began and will continue even with the occasional solicitor looking to buy the company.

“I don't do this for money. So, I don't want your money,” Dave says of his reply to prospective buyers of the company. “Of course, we do like the money, but that’s not our driver for it.”

by John Henry

July 7, 2023

1:16 PM

---FOO BAR