Teeing up jobs.

• Position: NC TREND: Eastern Region

Salt Life decals, stuck on everything from rusty pickups to shiny sports cars, evoke a certain image --and it's probably not the muddy Cape Fear River flowing through Fayetteville. Yet Salt Life's national distribution center recently moved almost within casting range of the freshwater banks, adding roughly 50 new jobs to a Fayetteville campus that is already home to apparel maker M.J. Soffe. More could be coming as Salt Life's brand proliferates.

Four Florida surfing buddies launched the line of beachy T-shirts and board shorts in 2003. The company is now sharing space with a Fayetteville-grown purveyor of casual and athletic wear founded in 1946 by the late M.J. Soffe, an Army vet who peddled apparel to post exchanges. Greenville, S.C.-based Delta Apparel acquired Soffe in 2003 and Salt Life in 2013. Salt Life initially was distributed with another Delta brand--Phenix City, Ala.-based The Game, which Delta sold last year. Distribution moved from Alabama to Fayetteville, where some Salt Life screen printing had already begun.

There was room to do the work in Fayetteville: About 100 people lost jobs in Cumberland County in 2009 when...