Carey Scully Strobeck ’96 is bringing apparel manufacturing back home to Vermont. With her clothing brand 4T2D and Burlington-based Fourbital Factory, the former Saints athlete is blending creativity, sustainable materials, and innovative technology to rethink how clothes are designed, made, and worn.
The first thing you notice inside Fourbital Factory is the creative energy. The renovated building next to Lake Champlain Chocolates in Burlington’s South End feels more like an open studio filled with working artists than a manufacturing plant.
Carey Scully Strobeck ’96 strides across the floor greeting employees by name as brightly colored cones of yarn feed computerized knitting machines nearby. A designer fine-tunes a pattern on her computer before walking over to knit the first prototype herself. College interns learn to operate laser cutters. A production specialist who spent the morning on the factory floor will soon shift into a sales meeting.
Strobeck moves easily between design conversations, production questions, and brainstorming sessions, dressed—unsurprisingly—in her own apparel. Whether she’s headed to a meeting, playing tennis or pickleball, or skiing, she’s often wearing the same garments conceived, prototyped, and manufactured just a few steps away. She isn’t simply designing an active lifestyle brand, she’s living it.
Everyone wears a lot of hats here, literally and figuratively.
Strobeck’s apparel brand, 4T2D—pronounced “fortitude”—creates versatile clothing and accessories inspired by the active Vermont lifestyle. Fourbital Factory, its 12,000-square-foot manufacturing arm, makes products for 4T2D while also producing custom beanies for other brands, schools, nonprofits, and organizations. Those beanies have become the factory’s bread and butter, with eye-catching designs now sold in retail locations in 22 states.
“We’re creatives,” Strobeck says. “We want people to have a beanie that makes people take a second look and say, ‘Oh, that’s cool.’”
A fine arts and art history major who later earned a master’s degree in education, taught first and second grades, renovated and flipped houses, and raised four children, Strobeck has brought every chapter of her life into the company she’s built. And her identity as an athlete, having played ice hockey for the Saints before switching to field hockey and lacrosse, informs the development of her products.
“I wanted something I could wear to work, play tennis, and switch back and forth,” she says, pointing to the reversible sleeveless top she has on that’s designed to be worn frontwards with a boat neckline or backwards with a deep V neckline, equally at home on the court or in a conference room.
At a time when the vast majority of the U.S. apparel industry relies on low-cost overseas labor, production, and synthetic fabrics, Strobeck envisioned something different. She wanted to produce thoughtfully designed clothing using materials chosen for performance and sustainability that are made close to home by a highly skilled team whose creativity is empowered by technology.
“I didn’t want this to be a fast-fashion operation, where employees are churning out the same thing, or sewing on the same left sleeve, over and over again. I wanted multi-skilled, use-your-brain, opportunities for the people on my team,” she explains.
Fourbital works with natural fibers, incorporates recycled materials where possible, and uses plant-derived performance fabrics like Modal and Tencel that offer comfort, durability, and moisture management.
When neighboring Vermont icon Darn Tough (co-owned by Ric Cabot P’26) found itself with small quantities of premium Merino wool left over from sock production, Fourbital Factory transformed the excess yarn into a limited run of branded winter beanies. Instead of ending up in storage, or in a landfill, the material became a product that reflected the shared values of two Vermont companies.
“If the United States is going to compete in manufacturing,” Strobeck says, “we have to use innovation.”
That versatility now extends from the factory to 4T2D’s new retail shop on Church Street Marketplace, where garments designed and made in the South End factory can quickly reach customers downtown. A designer might imagine a new style, prototype it, refine the fit, and have it selling in the shop within weeks. Strobeck’s husband, Matt ’96, also an entrepreneur, served as the fit model for the company’s best-selling men’s T-shirt, a soft cotton-modal staple designed to move easily between everyday life and outdoor activity.
Always the educator, Strobeck’s enterprise includes a nonprofit arm, Continuing ThrED, through which high school and college interns learn to sew, laser cut, design, and manufacture alongside experienced professionals. Some employees first arrived through the organization’s educational programs before joining the company full time.
“How do you know what you want to be,” Strobeck asks, “without having experience?” Ask Strobeck what prepared her for this work, and she doesn’t point to a single class or career. She credits all of it: the artist who loves beautiful design, the teacher who enjoys mentoring, and the athlete who believes every successful team depends on trust, versatility, and people willing to step in wherever they’re needed.
Her appreciation for those early lessons in teamwork and leadership continues to shape her relationship with St. Lawrence. In 2024, Carey and Matt helped honor beloved field hockey coach, the late Dorothy “Dotty” Hall P’96, by supporting the naming of the Dotty & John Hall Coaches Strategy Room. “That’s why I love to show SLU alumni or students what you could be capable of,” she says. “Here was my path—from an athlete to working as a team player here. And as a fine arts, art history major, I’m using it all.”
Shop 4T2D apparel at www.4t2d.com and learn about custom-branded beanies at www.fourbitalfactory.com
