It's a (Found) Family Affair

The Texas-based artisan pen brand Hinze Pen Co. began with one man, Jim Hinze. Ten years on, he has found the team he needs to realize his ultimate vision: a legacy.

- SUZANNE C. LEE

In the beginning, it was just Jim Hinze and the powerful driving force of curiosity, but 10 years later, Hinze Pen Co. is a web of intimate associates striving to create the best fountain pens on the market. Built on handshakes rather than contracts, a trust based in unshakeable affection and authenticity rather than big business's usual threat of litigation, Jim Hinze has created something truly remarkable.

Ironically, Hinze's experience and ongoing day job is technological in the extreme but, as he points out, there is nothing tangible about writing computer code—one can't hold it in the hand, feel its physical incarnation. Creation of the corporeal provides a satisfaction that abstract construction simply cannot; the result has heft and dimensionality. The relationships that have developed and become business affiliations are even more concrete and palpable.

Serendipity brought together Hinze and his Vice President of Marketing Francisco Lopez and kept them connected through both friendship and business. Around 10 years ago, tragedy struck Lopez when his car was totaled. His dominant hand went through the windshield, and he developed epilepsy. A therapist recommended that he begin writing to process and reflect upon the traumatic events. Lopez never liked cheap pens; even prior to all of this, he always selected the nicer of the everyday pens. This curiosity, coupled with boredom, led him to YouTube tutorials and information on fountain pens. His first of these writing instruments was the Pilot Metropolitan in basic black, which he purchased for $13.