Our Story

Richard grew up in the Attleboro area; an area that has always been a “hot spot” of jewelry manufacturing and whose history dates back to the late 18th century. At one time the Attleboro-Providence area was referred to as “The Jewelry Capital of the World”.

Richard began his jewelry career at Anchor Clover Chain Company in Pawtucket Rhode Island back in 1959. He started as a chain mechanic and worked his way up to manager before deciding to venture off and start his own chain company, which at the time was a pretty bold move considering he was newly married and had two young children at home.

Richard bought his first chain machine for $3,000 dollars and set it up in an old cow barn behind the house where he grew up in Attleboro and Garlan Chain was born. The company name, Garlan, is actually a combination of Richard’s surname, Gariepy, and his wife’s maiden name, Langlois. Now back in 1967 $3,000 dollars was a substantial amount of money and many people laughed at him telling him he was crazy, but Richard knew the chain industry and he saw a future in it for him and his family.

By 1975 business was slowly but surely building and so was Richard’s family that now consisted of 5 children, Rick, Cheryl, David, Tina and Ryan…talk about your motivation to succeed. All of Richard’s children would at one time or another work for the company, some longer than others, but ultimately David would end up taking the helm and running Garlan Chain when he graduated from school in 1992 and he continues to run the business today in a very “hands-on” fashion.
Garlan has always been very family oriented and currently employs 2 of David’s nephews and hopefully one day both of David’s Daughters, Jenna and Hannah.

A lot has changed since Garlan’s inception starting out with that one machine in a cow barn to our now more than 400 machines in a modern 21,000 square foot manufacturing facility, from only a handful of styles to our now more than 1,500 styles of chain and counting. One thing that hasn’t changed, and never will, is Garlan’s commitment to its employees and its customers.

Sincerely,
David M. Gariepy
President/Owner