Gerald Riley, Jr., is a clothier, an entrepreneur, a marketing expert, a fashion photographer, a web designer, a philanthropist, a six-day-per-week small business owner, and a doting father who spells the seventh day of the week “Sonday.”
“Sondays are all about my son,” he said, referring to his 5-year-old boy, Verse.
An autodidact who founded the Mud Made brand of clothing, he shifts smoothly from pitching collaborations with professional athletes to dealing with manufacturers in the United States, China, and Pakistan to organizing local pop-up shops to running charitable events that benefit the young people of Toledo.
The brand name was inspired by the Toledo Mud Hens; where do actual mud hens live but in the mud? It’s fitting, then, that his office is located across the street from Fifth Third field, even though he does much of his actual work from TolHouse and downtown Toledo coffee shops.
The clothing line now includes sweatshirts, hoodies, T-shirts, outerwear, shorts, hats, socks, and varsity-style jackets.