Western Kentucky Shoes Inc.

Western Kentucky Shoes Inc., doing business as Hayes Shoe, supplies safety and steel-toe protective footwear to federal defense and correctional agencies as a prime contractor competing without set-aside designation. The company is a for-profit corporate entity headquartered in Bowling Green, Kentucky, operating under primary NAICS 316210 (Footwear Manufacturing) and delivering goods across footwear manufacturing and merchant wholesale categories with no subcontractor footprint.

Hayes Shoe's customer concentration is heavily skewed toward two distinct agency clusters. The Department of the Army Materiel Command's TACOM Life Cycle Management Command dominates the dollar value (13 awards, $3.5 million combined potential value, 81% of total revenue), while the Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons Federal Correctional Complex Yazoo City anchors award volume (29 awards, $263 thousand combined potential value). Three additional agencies account for the remainder: the Defense Logistics Agency Distribution (3 awards, $499 thousand), Federal Correctional Institution Maxwell (4 awards, $20 thousand), and Federal Correctional Institution Talladega (1 award, $13 thousand). This split reveals a stark tension — DOJ Prisons places many small orders for staff footwear, while Army TACOM concentrates substantially larger purchase orders for safety and hard-toe shoes for operational use at the Anniston, Alabama facility.

Hayes Shoe holds a single-award Blanket Purchase Agreement with the Defense Logistics Agency Distribution (awarded April 25, 2025, ceiling value $250,000 through April 24, 2030) for safety and protective footwear including women's low-cut tennis shoes, men's 6-inch hiker boots, and unisex 8-inch and 11-inch boots. The contract specifies on-site shoe fitting services monthly at the DLA Distribution Anniston facility, with the government providing a $180 per-pair subsidy. Delivery orders against BPA GS-21-F-0086U with TACOM account for recent prime activity: a $127,633 firm fixed-price purchase order (January 6, 2025 through September 30, 2025), a $119,858 purchase order (October 1, 2025 through September 30, 2026), and a $291,026 purchase order (February 5, 2024 through September 30, 2024). Earlier contracts include a $297,847 purchase order from TACOM (February 8, 2023 through September 30, 2023) and a $5,700 purchase order from Federal Correctional Complex Yazoo City for various boots (September 19, 2022).

Activity has remained minimal and consistent across the past five years — one award annually through 2024, rising to three awards in 2025. The vendor's 56 total awards in the source reflect cumulative history back to February 2008, with combined potential value of $4.3 million and $3.8 million obligated (89% realization). Hayes Shoe competes exclusively as a prime on full-and-open (non-set-aside) procurements, with no sub-award footprint. The company supplies footwear directly to end users — military personnel at Anniston and correctional staff across DOJ facilities — rather than functioning as a systems integrator or professional services provider.