#078: Jimmy Jackson about wool knitting manufacturing in China

Introduction

Jimmy Jackson is a living legend in the wool industry. With a wool career of over 48 years in wool chemical processing, Jimmy Jackson combines knowledge and experience many companies seek out to have access to. In this Podcast Episode, Jimmy shares some of his knowledge on making wool machine washable and mercerizing wool. In addition, Jimmy talks about wool manufacturing in Asia, in particular, China and helps clarify some of the still existing prejudices around. Last but not least, Jimmy talks about the current trends and challenges the wool knitting industry is dealing with today.

About Jimmy Jackson

Jimmy Jackson was born in Bradford, in West Yorkshire in the north of England. At that time Bradford was known as the “Wool City” as 50% of all the worlds wool supply was traded and manufactured in and around that city. Therefore growing up in such an environment it was almost inevitable that Jimmy would pursue a career in the wool industry. In 1970 Jimmy joined the Woolmark Company (Then known as the International Wool Secretariat) as a laboratory technician in their International Research, Development and design centre which was located close by. Jimmy worked a recent technology at that time on making wool machine washable and was part of a team who took the idea and made it into a commercial scale manufacturing process. After this Jimmy was responsible for transferring the technology around the world designing and commissioning plants. This took him to the four corners of the world, Japan, Korea, Australia, South Africa, South and North America as well as throughout Western Europe and Eastern Europe including Russia. Jimmy was also the co-inventor of the Mercerised process for wool, known as Mercerized Merino which is firmly established today. In 1981 Jimmy made his first trip to China, and has been a frequent visitor ever since, and continues to visit their multiple times each year. In 2005 Jimmy left the UK to be based in AWI’s HQ in Sydney where he took up the position of General Manager for Product Development & Commercialization. In 2016 Jimmy Left AWI, and started his own part-time business (International Wool Consulting Group), where today he works with some of the leading and world’s largest Chinese wool manufacturers. Jimmy was educated at the University of Huddersfield in England, where he gained an honours degree in Textile Technology, and he was awarded a Fellow of the International Textile Institute.