A new company here, called PACT LLC, is creating and selling leather wallets and cases, but with a twist: The products are made with absolutely nothing but leather.

“It’s built on the idea of how do we create a case or satchel that doesn’t use typical leatherworking techniques like stitching or glue,” says co-founder Darrin Griechen. “These are folded together kind of origami; that’s what’s interesting about them. There’s no metal hardware; no zippers, no rings. Just the leather by itself.”

Ben Delaney, the other co-founder of PACT, says the company is offering five products now—a wallet, a phone case, a cell phone wallet, a tablet sleeve, a portfolio, and a satchel. Prices range from $40 for the wallet to $400 for the satchel. 

The company, which Delaney describes as a design collaborative, currently is operating out of an about 1,000-square-foot shop at Delaney’s South Hill home, he says. Delaney and Griechen are its only employees at the moment, but hiring more in the future is one of the company’s goals, they says. 

PACT officially launched with a month-long Kickstarter fundraising campaign, which went live on July 1, Delaney says. The partners formed the initial idea for the company last winter, he says, and began preparing it for launch in the spring. 

Delaney says that PACT received about $20,000 in pledges of its $50,000 Kickstarter goal. However, if a campaign doesn’t hit its goal, it doesn’t get any of the pledges. Regardless, Delaney says the company is moving forward. 

“Right now, one of the first steps was to try and recapture as much as possible of the pledges we received,” Delaney says. “Another of our early goals was to reach out to those people and let them know that our store is set up and they can make their purchases directly.”

Delaney says that the company’s products are sold primarily online for now. The partners are looking to get the products into retail stores here soon, he says. 

Although PACT is still in its first months of operation, its roots started earlier than that, Delaney says. Griechen previously owned a company called Tuch LLC, which sold similar leather products.

“A few years ago, in 2009, Darrin had created these products, and I had helped him set up his website,” Delaney says. “He had a lot of success with (Tuch), just doing it in the side, but I wasn’t involved past the initial setup.”

Griechen ran Tuch until January 2013, when he closed the company for a number of reasons, he says. 

Currently, the partners are working with Spokane-based Tactile Light Industries LLC, which does custom laser engraving, to manufacture the company’s products. However, they would like to bring the manufacturing process in-house eventually.

“Now that we have this much more one-on-one relationship (with Tactile Light) and everything they do is one-off and interesting, it’s been a really good relationship to sit down with them and work it out,” Griechen says. “Long term, we still want to bring the manufacturing in-house if possible. It also might be a situation where Tactile grows with us. We’re open to lots of different partnership possibilities.” 

The name for the company sprung from the duo’s serious nature and shared principles, Griechen says. 

“The word ‘Pact’ embodies a commitment, a strict set of principles,” he says. “There’s a way we wanted to do business, and that pact is embodied in the name.”

Griechen says the company gets its leather from Chicago-based Horween Leather Co., which has been operating as a tannery since 1905.

“We’re using all-U.S. tanned leather,” Griechen says. “We’re really thinking about how we can make all of our stuff domestically.”

Griechen is an architect by trade, he says, and teaches at Washington State University in the architecture department. He first began teaching at the Spokane campus, he says, but has since transferred to the main campus in Pullman, which he commutes to from Spokane. 

Meanwhile, Delaney’s background is in graphic design, he says. He previously worked for a software company in Spokane Valley called School Data Solutions Inc.

As the company grows, so will its product lines, Delaney says, although it will be sticking with leather for now. 

“It’ll be a continuation of the leather line,” he says. “Soon we’ll have a phone sleeve and probably other kinds of accessories. We’re expanding into handbags and right now we’re developing a very special series of backpacks that will be custom-fitted. So a customer will send us measurements, and we’ll fit a backpack that just fits perfectly for the customer’s body.”

Delaney says that he and Griechen use modern software to create their designs, but also are interested in old-world leatherworking techniques.