Teed up: a Burlington T-shirt company resets by putting people before profits.

• Author: Rowe, Jeri
• Position: Statewide: BUSINESS NEWS FROM ACROSS NORTH CAROLINA

Located just minutes off Interstate 40 in Burlington, where traffic is a distant roar, TS Designs makes a good T-shirt. But not just any kind of T-shirt, and it's not just any kind of company. A tipoff starts in the parking lot with the sound of a rooster crowing. Fourteen chickens and one lone rooster strut and peck in a fenced pen behind the biodiesel shack. Rows of corn stand stalk-straight above a garden of tomatoes, okra and eggplant. Beside the plants is an arbor of scuppernong grapes shadowed by a solar panel, and above it is a toothpick of a wind turbine framed by clouds and an arena of trees. The sign outside reads, "Printing T-shirts For Good."

Integrating social values as a key business principle, symbolized by the poultry, vegetables and solar-power device just outside the factory door, is defining more companies, including the 38-year-old T-shirt company that reinvented itself in an industry ravaged by overseas competition. TS Designs survived the manufacturing collapse in North Carolina to become an example of how sustainable business practices along with American labor, cotton and know-how can lead to success. It's led by an unabashed advocate of respecting the environment and supporting community, a company president who comes to work in shorts, a T-shirt and two bracelets made out of climbing rope.

"To me, happiness is derived from helping the community where you live," says Eric Henry, who has helped run the business for 36 years. "If only a few are doing well, you can't build walls high enough. Life still would pretty much suck. And why would anyone want to work around unemployed, unhappy people? This (outlook) makes my community a better place to be."

Henry grew up in Burlington, the youngest son of a transportation manager for a textile company. He went to N.C. State University and UNC Chapel Hill before leaving 18 hours shy of graduation in 1979 to help Tom Sineath run TS Designs. Started two years earlier, the company was prospering with about 100 employees cranking out as many as 30,000 T-shirts per order. Eight big customers, including Nike and Tommy Hilfiger, comprised 95% of sales.

In 1993, Congress passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, better known by its acronym, NAFTA, in hopes of boosting jobs while creating closer economic ties among the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Since taking effect in January 1994, NAFTA's overall impact on economic growth remains a source of much debate. But there's no doubt of its...