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Immo Luchin, 2, has his photo taken with John Cronin of John’s Crazy Socks, Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday. Following the photo opportunity, John and Mark Cronin gave a talk about the founding of their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
Mark X. Cronin, left, and John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks give a talk at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in College Station on Thursday about how they decided to start their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
Texas A&M students Madison McKown (left to right), Sofia Herrera and Emily Morrow take a photo with John Cronin (center) of John's Crazy Socks, Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday.
Veronica Bender (front), Caleb Benner (left) and Miranda Ferguson (center) take a photo with John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks and dogs Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday.
Mark X. Cronin, left, and John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks give a talk at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in College Station on Thursday about how they decided to start their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
John’s Crazy Socks was born out of a lack of opportunities for co-founder John Cronin after high school, and led to a special relationship with President George H.W. Bush.
John Cronin, now 26, has Down syndrome and did not see any job opportunities that interested him, but his dad, Mark X. Cronin, noted his son is a natural entrepreneur. During a presentation at the Bush School on Thursday, Mark described his son as a sock tycoon, a public speaker, a philanthropist, an athlete, a dancer, a good brother and a good friend, who happens to have Down syndrome.
“When you didn’t see your job you wanted, what did you say?” he asked.
“I want to create one; I want to make one,” John said. “I said I’m going to go into business with my dad, and have a nice father-and-son business together.”
After nixing an idea to open a food truck due to the fact neither cooks, John said, he came up with the idea before Thanksgiving 2016 to make crazy socks like the kind he enjoyed wearing. He said they are fun, colorful and always let him be himself. John’s Crazy Socks officially opened for business on Dec. 9, 2016.
Within one day, they had 42 orders, and in one month 152 orders. Now, a few months away from their sixth anniversary, John’s Crazy Socks has 4,000 different kinds of socks, has shipped 390,000 packages to 88 different countries, created 34 jobs — 22 held by people with different abilities — and raised more than $550,000 for their charity partners, including the Special Olympics.
“But most of all, we’re off spreading happiness,” said Mark, who lives with his son in Huntington, New York. “What we’ve done is create a slightly different type of business model. It’s a social enterprise. We have a social mission and a business mission, and they feed off of each other.”
John, who serves as chief happiness officer, said their business is based on five pillars: inspiration and hope, giving back, fun products you can love, make it personal and make it a great place to work. All five contribute to their missions of spreading happiness.
One of their most notable customers was President Bush, who shared John’s love of crazy, colorful socks. Mark described them as “sock buddies.”
After seeing an article about Bush’s love for the kind of socks John’s Crazy Socks was selling, John suggested they send the former president a pair of socks. The pair then received a call from someone connected with the president who said he loved them so much, he wanted to buy more and also sent John a pair of socks he liked.
On World Down Syndrome Day — March 21, 2018 — Bush tweeted a picture of his pair of Down syndrome superhero socks that John had designed. After Barbara Bush died, the family asked if John’s Crazy Socks had socks to wear to honor the first lady’s commitment to family literacy.
“Well, the day of her funeral, the only communication the president had with the outside world was to send out a tweet of him wearing these socks and talking about his wife’s commitment to literacy,” Mark said. “To think that my son was able to connect with the president at a time of need is overwhelming. We’ve gone on to sell thousands of pairs of those socks, and they raise money for the Barbara Bush Family Literacy Foundation.”
In December 2018 when the former president died, Mark said, John told him they needed to go to Washington, D.C., to pay their respects, traveling from their home in Huntington, New York. In the guestbook to the Bush family, John wrote a note saying it made him happy that Bush wore his socks, and he hoped the socks made the former president happy. He ended his note describing Bush as a “very good guy” and that he will miss him. He signed it “John Cronin, John’s Crazy Socks.”
Mark said even greater than the connection John and Bush formed over their mutual love of crazy socks was the Americans with Disabilities Act that Bush signed into law.
“That changed the world for millions and millions of people,” he said. “Without that legislation, my son would not have had the life he’s been able to enjoy, and there would be no John’s Crazy Socks.”
Mark said there have been great strides made in the medical arena and in the world of education through high school and programs such as the Aggie ACHIEVE program. The next step, he said, is in the area of jobs and housing, so people with different abilities can live a full life.
Mark said his son is not defined by his Down syndrome, and John said his extra chromosome never holds him back. With each order is a note from John, candy – just like the first orders were packed – and the picture and name of the person who packed the box.
The company has started a new initiative called JCS Champions where they want to encourage people with different abilities to start their own business by giving them microbusiness in a box. They will get the socks, selling stands, marketing material and six weeks of training to run their own business. They are starting with five, but over five years, they hope to have created 1,000 businesses.
“It’s what I think former President Bush would have called 1,000 Points of Light. We want to give people that opportunity. We want to show the world look what people can do. Look what each of us can do. Look what the people we meet every day can do. Where’s this all leading? A better world awaits.”
Mark said he wants to live in a world when seeing people with different abilities in the workplace and in industry is not remarkable, but is just a normal occurrence.
John left the crowd with four bits of advice: follow your heart; follow your dreams; work hard; and show what you can do.
On Friday, John and Mark are meeting with students and staff of the Aggie ACHIEVE program, which began in 2019 to allow young adults with intellectual and development disabilities to pursue post-secondary education as a Texas A&M student. The inaugural class will graduate in the spring with four-year certificates in interdisciplinary studies from the School of Education and Human Development.
Heather Dulas, Aggie ACHIEVE program director, said she hopes meeting with John and Mark gives the students the push they need to enter the world and know they are valued. She said John is a representative example of what they try to tell the students in the program that they can do anything and get the job they want.
“They don’t walk into Starbucks and see that server that looks like them, so I think seeing John be successful and being able to talk to a group of people is really helpful,” she said.
Alexis Villarreal, a senior in the Aggie ACHIEVE program, agreed it was neat to see somebody with Down syndrome be so successful. After graduation, she said, she hopes to move to Sugar Land to go into business with her dad.
After Thursday’s presentation with the Bush School students, Dulas said, she hopes the students in attendance start to envision workplaces where hiring people with different abilities is not seen as extra or as a nice thing to do, but as just normal practice.
She and Kelsey Gipson, job developer with the program, encouraged people who are interested in being hiring managers or owning a business to take part in their mock interview fair and interview students with disabilities.
“Something I’ve come across working with employers is it’s not an ‘I don’t want to,’ it’s an ‘I don’t necessarily know how.’ Things like this and working with Aggie ACHIEVE, that gives them the tools to show that it’s possible, and I feel like that will spread and we’ll see more of it in the future. That’s pretty cool.”
The comment that stuck with Joshua Carley, a first-year masters of public service and administration student at the Bush School, is the notion that it is not altruism to hire people with different abilities, but it is good business. He said that goes for more than just businesses, but is true for governments and nonprofits.
“Having the most people at the table and the best people in the tables is so important,” he said, “and I think it’s great that he was able to talk to government school people about that and not just business students.”
At the start of the program, Mark showed pictures of John as a baby, explaining the medical complications and procedures his son endured and survived, including open heart surgery. People wondered, he said, what a child like John could grow up to do.
“And the answer is, he could grow up to change the world,” Mark said, showing a picture of John testifying for the second time before the U.S. Congress. “… If there’s nothing else that you take from today, we want you to recognize what’s possible. What’s possible in each of us, and all of the people we meet in our day-to-day.”
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Immo Luchin, 2, has his photo taken with John Cronin of John’s Crazy Socks, Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday. Following the photo opportunity, John and Mark Cronin gave a talk about the founding of their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
Mark X. Cronin, left, and John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks give a talk at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in College Station on Thursday about how they decided to start their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
Texas A&M students Madison McKown (left to right), Sofia Herrera and Emily Morrow take a photo with John Cronin (center) of John's Crazy Socks, Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday.
Veronica Bender (front), Caleb Benner (left) and Miranda Ferguson (center) take a photo with John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks and dogs Sully H.W. Bush and Reveille X at the Bush Library in College Station on Thursday.
Mark X. Cronin, left, and John Cronin of John's Crazy Socks give a talk at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in College Station on Thursday about how they decided to start their company and how they became acquainted with former President George H.W. Bush.
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