In 2015, we met Mac Wilson and Nick Weaver at our National Stuttering Awareness Week Gala at the Lotos Club in New York City. Our event focused on entrepreneurialism, where both spoke with guests about the career paths each have pursued, along with the obstacles they each faced to gain employment. We caught up with each to see how their careers have progressed since we first spoke seven years ago.

Mac Wilson

After we met Mac, he moved to Charlotte, NC, got married in 2017 to his wife Lindsay, and got started in the home-building business as a project manager. “I wanted to learn the ins and outs of the business and learning how to build a house from the ground up, with the hope of branching out on my own in the future,” he added. His first project was his own house, which involved tearing down an existing home to build from scratch.

After a couple of years as a project manager learning the trade, Mac founded Commonwealth Custom Homes earlier this year, buying land in Lancaster, South Carolina, where he plans to build “spec houses” in the near future.

But his attention these days is on building his family. As we go to print with this article, he and Lindsay are expecting the arrival of their first child in the next few weeks. “I’m terrified but excited,” he said. And we’re very excited for you, Mac!

Nick Weaver

Prior to the 2015 gala, we featured Nick’s work as Co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Blue Delta Jeans (bluedeltajeans.com) – which specializes in custom-made jeans made in Tupelo, Mississippi. Nick was proud to announce that BDJ is celebrating 10 successful years in business and has grown to more than 70 employees. Recent developments include new technology that allows customers to be measured digitally online for the perfect fit. They’ve also partnered with the U.S. Ryder Cup golf team as an official sponsor.

In addition to golf, Nick has helped lead BDJ to rapidly becoming a favorite of myriad celebrities, professional athletes and coaches, as can be seen on the company’s Instagram channel (instagram.com/bluedeltajeans).

Beyond making jeans, Nick also announced he is also jumping into the mattress business, once again using the talented workforce in Tupelo. His new venture is called Nest & Wild (nestandwild.com), and production began in January of 2022.

Always one to support his community, Nick has taken on a few ventures to help those in need. At the onset of Covid-19, Nick and his team were contracted by the state of Mississippi to help make masks when supplies were limited. His team helped the state source N95 cloth material and elastic and delivered more than three million masks and a half a million gowns to health care providers when materials were in short supply.

He also completed three contracts with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deliver more than five million pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables to schools and families as part of disaster and Covid relief efforts using his warehouse space and shipping expertise.

When we asked Nick what made him so successful, he credits “surrounding myself with talented people who care” and using his “best skill set—communicating” which he says is quite ironic given his stutter. “Man, I just like to make things happen,” he added. You sure do, Nick!

From the Spring 2022 Magazine