At times, living on an island where progress is slow and a "can’t do" mindset seems embedded in the culture, it takes an outsider to demonstrate how quickly things can be done with the proper motivation.

Enter Denyse Ray, a clinical psychologist from Charlotte, N.C., who arrived on Oahu in 2005 when her husband’s work broughtthem here temporarily and who quickly decided to stay.

It was here that she had the time to follow through on her idea to provide surgical masks to all who needed them. She envisionedselling her Emergency Access System Escape Masksto medical suppliers and hardware stores where she imagined women might want a more feminine-looking mask. She called hercompany Lady Ease.

That was 3 1⁄2 years ago. Three months ago she opened her Ease Collection garment-manufacturing facility in Kakaako, designed to serve Hawaii’ssports community with athletic wear for school, business and community teams, taking orders for as few as 10 pieces.

With Ray’s background as a board-certified expert in traumatic stress, she can’t resist helping anyone in need, and she quicklydiscovered the extent of that need in the fashion community.

"I thought business would be slow for a year and that I’d be plodding along with time to build the business. I’ve been blindsidedby the need. The more I do, the more I see the need is so great," she said. "I mainly set it up so I could produce golf shirts,not realizing most people who are starting up a fashion company are looking for … a me."

Everyone from large local manufacturers who want to keep more of their business in the islands to new designers has been callingon Ray. She’s even producing women’s golf shirts for ESPN and has been trying to accommodate all, while she’s learning thebusiness herself.

"I just found out I have to go out and buy a new (sewing machine) foot to do rolled hems because that’s what one of the designerswants to do."

ALTHOUGH a handful of the state’s largest garment manufacturers still produce their apparel in the islands, there’s no recordof how many clothing manufacturers or sewing contractors are producing garments locally.

"A lot of them operate underground. Nobody keeps track of it now that there’s no industry association," said Dennis Ling,an administrator with the Brand Development and Support Division of the state Department of Business, Economic Developmentand Tourism. "A lot of times people are just sewing from their homes."

He applauds Ray’s visible entry, saying that on a recent trip to Japan to promote local fashion exports, he learned that Japanmanufacturers are outsourcing textile print work. He said it would be great to have the resources to bring some of that businessto Hawaii.

There is growing incentive for designers and manufacturers to keep such work and jobs at home.

"That something is cheaper to make offshore is no longer a given today and very much a residual myth from years of hollowingout domestic manufacturing," Tori Richard President and CEO Josh Feldman said. "Labor costs are equalizing, and with dollarweakness and existing tariffs and duties, any cost savings is generally outweighed by larger finished-good inventory costsassociated with large offshore production quantities."

SO RAY finds herself positioned well, though it hasn’t been long since she learned to sew so she could produce her masks properly. Shehit on the mask necessity when she was called in to the World Trade Center site in New York as an emergency responder afterthe Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. When she arrived two days later, there was still plenty of debris in the air, and sheinstinctively covered her mouth and nose before tearing off her sleeve and tying it around her face to protect herself. Fewof the responders had masks, and she realized how hard it was to help people while trying to protect oneself.

She worked with Johns Hopkins University to produce a filter that could be sewn into the masks, which she now makes with bright,colorful fabric that belies the seriousness of their use. But she struggled to find a manufacturer here who could do the qualitywork she wanted as well as one willing to keep the work here. Many wanted to outsource the work to China or Vietnam.

"When that happened, I’d just give them a hug and tell them I needed to go somewhere else. I wanted to keep manufacturinghere because of the need to maintain quality control, and secondly, we need to get people here working again."

She started sewing the masks herself and had amassed 3,000 when she signed up for a 2008 New Products Show. Her masks soldout, and she realized many people were buying them for Hawaii island residents who lived with vog every day. She had 1,500more masks at home that she donated to Big Island veterans, health and children’s facilities. Philanthropy continues to bea core element of her business.

"My banker and CPA don’t like to hear this, but that’s part of my philosophy. You can’t have something that your neighborneeds and not give it to them," she said.

That same year, Ray heard about the death of Cyrus Belt, the toddler who was killed when he was tossed over a freeway overpassby a neighbor. At that point she was ready to end her psychology career.

"Children have always been a soft spot for me, and I never could stand the idea of anyone harming children. After years ofbeing a first responder, I didn’t want to see that kind of hurt anymore," she said. "I decided this was my time. I wasn’tready to be completely retired, so I did a lot of finding my way around."

When she met someone who inquired whether she could produce golf shirts, she said she’d give it a try, even though she had never constructeda shirt. After coming up with a prototype, she realized she couldn’t continue working out of her home and started researchingthe idea of opening a factory, at a cost of about $300,000 from savings and a Small Business Administration loan.

Her facility now measures 4,000 square feet with 11 sewers plus a couple of military veterans who help pack and ship. She’sthinking about expanding further and one day adding to her author’s credits by finishing a book on parallels in the dynamicsof disenfranchisement among Hawaiians and African-Americans.

Through her fashion work, she’s rediscovering her psychologist’s voice, speaking out against the pathology of greed that hasled so many companies to outsource jobs while evidence of unemployment, homelessness and hunger continues to mount.

"I ask, ‘How much is enough?’ We need to do better at looking out for each other."

All the while, she remains driven by her favorite adage from an anonymous author: "We, the unwilling, led by the unqualified,have been doing the unbelievable for so long with so little, we now attempt the impossible with nothing."

Ease Collection is at 831 Pohukaina St. Suite E. Call 380-7558 or 352-7511.