Hats built to last a lifetime, not a season.

Bill Conner was introduced to leatherwork by Stan Thompson in St. Augustine, Florida in April 1969. Making things by hand, one at a time, was already considered old fashioned. He registered his company as BC Leather and sold sandals, bags, belts and hats at art-and-craft fairs with his wife Marion and baby son Will. They often set up a teepee as a display, which doubled as a playpen to keep Will out of the hot Florida sun.

A hitchhiker's stories about cheap rent and empty surf behind Broken Head confirmed everything Bill imagined about Australia. The Australian government was offering $1,500 toward airfare for immigrants who could contribute something. Bill tucked his long hair into a short-haired wig, charmed the immigration interviewer, and on 5 November 1970 the family landed in Brisbane.

Bill opened Country Leather in Burleigh Heads, Queensland, a walk from world-class surf. As the high rises went up he moved the family an hour down the coast to Byron Bay, the town the hitchhiker had described years earlier. There he narrowed his range to leather hats, already his best sellers, and started wholesaling to stores across Australia.

Back then it was one style in many colours, and the Stockman was quietly becoming a national bestseller. The film put the Australian stockman's hat on screens everywhere. Orders followed, and Bill hired his first employees — a big step for a man used to handcrafting every hat himself. Each one was taught to make a part of the hat to the standard he had set by hand.

When the film was released, distributors started calling from around the world. Production moved from a workshop on Bill's property to a larger one in Byron Bay's Arts and Industrial Estate. In 1988 BC Hats became the official hat of the World Expo in Brisbane.

Will grew up in Byron Bay and came to St. Augustine at eighteen to study business administration at Flagler College. A professor asked the class for a good business idea. Will said, "to sell Australian hats." The whole room laughed, professor included. After one semester he left to learn business in the real world, and spent the money he had saved for college importing his father's hats into the United States.

The Australian government named Bill Small Business Exporter of the Year for New South Wales, in recognition of creating Australia's original leather hat with a shapeable brim and taking it to the world stage.

It took years to go from a two-car garage to a rented storage unit to a small warehouse with a few employees. Then Will made an unorthodox decision and moved in with his hats, building a plywood floor and a few shelves into a sleeping space above his ten-foot by ten-foot office. He ran extension cords for a reading light and a cooker, and built a shower in an outside building the landlord let him use. The hard part was waiting for the other tenants to leave before showering.

He called the warehouse home for seven years. It bought him the deposit on a house and the land the Conner Hats warehouse stands on today.

By designing styles beyond what BC Hats made, Will grew the business into a wider set of stores across the US. That range came with a commitment: organic cotton, responsibly sourced wool, hemp, renewable algae foam in place of petroleum-based foam, and recycled plastic in the designs rather than new plastic.

Bill has retired from the factory to spend more time surfing, and Will travels between St. Augustine and Byron Bay. The last of his dad's Australian-made BC Hats can still be found, but act fast — once they are gone, no more will be made.

Will credits Bill and his mum, Marion, with showing him that if you are happy on your path and never give up, there is no limit to how far it goes.