BlueWater Defense CEO, Eric Spackey, was recently featured in an article discussing the Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) organization and the upcoming wave of innovation for functional fabrics. 

“Apparel will become the new platform from which the digital world will be operating,” Mr Spackey says. “Clothing will be able to interact with the outside world. It’s an exciting time. We are about to create a new industry.”

Mr Spackey believes that a decade from now, AFFOA will have secured an important place in the history of textiles and apparel by rapidly deploying and funding existing research and turning it into innovation and jobs.

“It’s all being set up for US manufacturing once we create products,” Mr Spackey says. “The objective is to find a way to create manufacturing in the US so we can then develop strategies to support US manufacturing capability and bring back some of the jobs we lost.”

AFFOA’s membership, Mr Spackey believes, offers an ecosystem that can lead to swift manufacturing of products. He describes it as a virtual foundry network.

Click here to read the entire article, AFFOA Looking to Drive Innovation for Functional Fabrics (article on page 3).