Shelby Marquardt, the creator of blue sky scrubs, LLC, was an anesthesiology resident at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas when she introduced the scrub hats that were blue sky's first product.
 

Doctor turned entrepeneur Shelby Marquardt launched blueskyscrubs.com to offer designer nursing scrubs, medical scrubs, and hospital uniforms.

URL: http://www.blueskyscrubs.com

Using scraps of extra material, Shelby created the first (now called) Pony hat in her living room.  After cutting, sewing and altering the hat numerous times, she finally perfected the pattern—a sleek, slim-fitting cap with a ribbon-tied pouch that neatly ties back a short or a long ponytail. Once she started wearing the hat to work, her co-workers clamored for their own Pony scrub hats, and she began spending her weekends sewing.  Shelby was unable to keep up with all of the requests, so she looked for someone to help sew the hats.  Her husband, David Marquardt, who is an entrepreneur and the President of a successful business in Austin, saw the potential with the scrub hats and began the process of securing Patents, creating a website, and marketing the product.

Before selling the hats online, Shelby "abused" the hats to make sure they would hold up and so that she could improve upon any imperfections she found while washing, drying, stretching, bending,
and folding the hats.  Once she felt that they were perfect, she let David know and the "official" production began.

In 2005, the website at http://www.blueskyscrubs.com went live. David and the one employee that he had hired watched as the first order came through for a $24.00 hat.  A good day was selling at least one hat.  Now, only 4 years later, blue sky scrubs can barely keep their products in stock, and fulfill roughly 100 orders per day.  In 2009, two patents, one for design and one for utility for the Pony hat were approved (U.S. Patent No. 7437777, D572879)  and one for the Pixie hat  (U.S. Patent No. D547030), which Shelby created after many women with shorter hair mentioned that they wanted the scrub hats as well.

Soon, men were requesting scrub hats as well as women who adored the classic bouffant.  And so, Shelby created men's hats and the 'Poppy' hat - a hat that resembles the bouffant but with a fashionable twist. Finally, improving on an existing design, Shelby created scrub tops and bottoms that have come to be popular in hospitals around the world.

One of the key moments in blue sky scrubs' history was when we saw Grey's Anatomy's season finale and Dr. "McDreamy" was sporting one of our scrub hats!  We honestly had no idea that the hat would be on the show.  This is a real story even though it sort of seems like it'd be a great promotional - a resident at a hospital sews her own scrub hat and a year later, that hat is on one of the most popular national TV shows!

blue sky scrubs is unique in that the products - from start to finish - are made in the USA.  The fabric comes primarily from New York, NY and all of the manufacturing is still done in Houston, TX.  blue sky scrubs ships all of their products from Austin, TX where the three employees spend time ironing every product before it ships, answering questions and taking orders over the telephone, and creating content for the website.  The website definitely has a personal touch - all of the content is written by the employees - those who know the most about the products and the company.

blue sky scrubs hopes to grow and expand even more in the future.  The possibilities are endless.

Posted by Eric Ward on 10/01/09

Tags: Shelby Marquardt, blueskyscrubs.com, designer scrubs, designer hospital uniforms
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