Rich Eggett, founder of Rockwell, and his daughter Ariel Faloon have built something remarkable in the heart of Utah. Their company creates a lifestyle where relationships matter more than anything else, where their headquarters doubles as an adventure basecamp, and where innovation comes from genuine passion rather than corporate strategy.
In a recent MountainWest Capital Network Podcast interview, Rich and Ariel shared their journey of building Rockwell into an iconic lifestyle brand. They’ve revolutionized everything from Italian handcrafted sunglasses to breakthrough floatable eyewear, all while proving that treating everyone like family isn’t just good business—it’s the only way to do business.
From European Discovery to Utah Innovation
Rich’s business philosophy was born on the mountains of Europe, but it found its home in Utah. During a college backpacking trip with friends, Rich found himself at the meeting point of the Swiss and Italian Alps, convinced he was witnessing the most beautiful place on earth. Then a German stranger wearing a BYU wrestling shirt changed everything.
“My favorite place in the world is in Utah,” the man told Rich. “Bryce Canyon.” When Rich admitted he’d never been despite living just three hours away, the stranger scolded him: “You’re over here, and you’ve never been to Bryce Canyon.”
That weekend, Rich visited Bryce Canyon for the first time. “This is the most incredible place on earth,” he realized. The experience became the foundation of Rockwell’s core belief that sometimes the best opportunities are right in your backyard, and genuine experiences beat manufactured ones every time.
The Fire Theory That Changed Everything
Most business advice warns against having “too many irons in the fire,” but Rich discovered something different during Rockwell’s growth. The real problem isn’t too many irons but too many fires.
“Building a fire is difficult,” Rich explains in the podcast. “It is terribly hard to build a fire without gasoline. You have to grab the kindling and you have to build it just right, and you have to have the right amount of air and fuel and everything to work.”
Rich realized the key was building one great fire (their marketing and brand platform), then putting as many compatible irons in it as possible. Whether it’s watches, sunglasses, their travel agency, or events, every iron has to help the others stay hot. This approach has allowed them to expand into multiple product lines and business ventures while maintaining focus and quality.
From $7.25 an Hour to Manufacturing Mastermind
While Rich built the fire, his daughter Ariel proved that the best business education comes from showing up and making yourself indispensable, not textbooks. At 15, Ariel asked for a job every day. When she finally got her driver’s license at 16, she took matters into her own hands.
“I finally just showed up and started working unpaid,” Ariel recalls. “I went around to everyone in the company and said, what do you do? Teach me what you do.” After six months of unpaid work, Rich finally offered her a job—at $7.25 an hour.
“He really just made me work for it,” Ariel says. “It taught me that if I do not want to be paid $7.25 an hour, I need to make myself valuable.”
Today, Ariel leads Rockwell’s manufacturing operations, particularly their high-end Italian eyewear production. She’s taken what used to require two experienced employees and does it better, more efficiently, and at a better price. Her expertise in negotiating with Italian craftsmen and bringing manufacturing in-house has become crucial to Rockwell’s competitive advantage.
“Make my life easier and then your life will be easier,” Rich told Ariel early on. “If you can take the people around you and make their lives easier, whether they’re above you or below you, it’s hard to get rid of you.” Ariel figured this out, proving that the best succession planning happens when the next generation earns their place through value creation, not birthright.
The Compound: Where Work Becomes Adventure
Step into the Rockwell compound, and you’ll understand why their employees truly live there. What started as an old airplane hangar in the middle of nowhere has become something Rich calls his “series of best bad decisions.”
The compound includes a full gym (open to employees and paying members), a full-size football field, Olympic-regulation beach volleyball courts, five fire pits in a custom courtyard, and even a stage for events. During COVID, when wedding venues canceled on Ariel, the compound transformed into a Hawaiian luau complete with Polynesian traditions that left guests wondering if they were actually in Utah.
“You are at work more than anything,” Rich explains. “You are at work or spending time on work more than the next three things combined. That includes sleeping, eating, spending time with your family, anything. So if you are at work more than anything in the world, how do you make it enjoyable?”
Rich’s answer created something rare in business: a workplace where people genuinely want to be. Their nine o’clock gym class is filled with employees and friends who’ve become employees, creating a culture where the lines between work, fitness, friendship, and fun blur together naturally.
Floatable Innovation Meets Italian Craftsmanship
While Rockwell’s culture sets them apart, their innovation keeps them competitive. Ariel has spearheaded their most exciting breakthrough: truly floatable sunglasses that solve a billion-dollar problem.
“The big players in the market have really given us trouble about making floatable sunglasses,” Rich reveals. “These billion dollar companies make over a hundred million dollars a year from people losing their sunglasses in the oceans.”
Working with the same Italian factories that produce for billion-dollar brands like Maui Jim and Costa, Ariel has perfected floatable technology across multiple models. While their high-end Italian acetate sunglasses still “float like a rock,” as Rich jokes, they’ve created floatable versions of their most popular styles without compromising on quality or aesthetics.
The Italian connection runs deep. Every pair of sunglasses is handcrafted in Northern Italy, where “four centuries of eyewear artistry come to bear.” Ariel makes multiple trips annually to maintain relationships with craftsmen who bend each piece of metal by hand, ensuring that every pair meets Rockwell’s exacting standards.
Faith-Based Business in a Competitive World
At the heart of Rockwell’s success lies a simple but profound principle: treat everyone like family because, spiritually speaking, they are. This faith-based approach to business is as practical as it is idealistic.
Rich believes that if you view everyone as a child of God, then they’re family. Thinking about relationships that way makes it much easier to do business where you don’t want to cheat somebody, you don’t want someone to cheat you, and you want a win-win situation.
Their faith extends to every aspect of their business, from employee relationships to customer service to vendor negotiations. Ariel adds that growing up in their faith taught them to “treat people as you want to be treated. How would you want someone to treat your brother that was working with someone else, or your sister?”
But Rich admits this mindset comes with challenges. “My struggle is I want to follow Jesus and I want to slap people,” he says with characteristic honesty. “There are times when you want to crush somebody. It’s hard. Because there are people I struggle with.”
This vulnerability and honesty in discussing faith and business challenges creates trust with employees, customers, and partners who appreciate that Rockwell’s values aren’t just marketing copy but lived experiences with real struggles and real commitment.
Destination Distribution and the Hero Mission
Rockwell’s business methods reflect their lifestyle philosophy in unexpected ways. Their distribution model, for instance, is elegantly simple: they only distribute to destinations where they’d want to vacation.
“We only want to distribute our sunglasses to destination locations, places where we’d want to go on vacation,” Rich explains. This “destination distribution” ensures that their retail partners are in places where people are actively living the lifestyle Rockwell represents, while also making business trips feel more like adventures.
Their giving program is equally innovative. The Hero Mission lets customers choose their own impact rather than trusting a corporation to donate on their behalf. When customers use the code “HERO MISSION,” they receive a second product to give away personally to a hero of their choice: police officers, military members, firefighters, or healthcare workers.
“We’ve been all over the world and never seen a poor kid wearing Tom’s shoes,” Rich notes, referencing the disconnect between corporate giving claims and visible impact. “Every time a company’s like, ‘Hey, we gave away a million dollars to this,’ and it’s like, well, that was me at the cash register that gave you the $4 extra.”
The Hero Mission creates genuine connections between customers and recipients, with both sides often emailing Rockwell about their positive experiences. The program turns giving from a corporate tax write-off into real relationship-building and impact.
Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword
For all of Rockwell’s success, Rich acknowledges that their relationship-focused approach creates unique vulnerabilities. “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” he reflects. “Relationships are obviously the most important thing to us. We built our brand on relationships, our partnerships, and everything we do is based on relationships.”
The hardest seasons for Rich aren’t financial challenges or operational problems. They’re relationship breakdowns with people he thought were friends or partners who prioritized money over connection.
Rich explains that the hardest part is losing employees or partners where he thought the relationship was much more than business, but to them it was just about money. Those are the hardest seasons because with other business challenges, you expect them to be difficult. But when relationships fail, that’s what really hurts.
Being honest about the emotional cost of relationship-based business makes Rich and Ariel’s success more impressive. They’ve chosen the harder path of treating business as personal relationships, accepting both the rewards and risks that come with that choice.
Building Legacy Through Lifestyle
As Rockwell looks toward the future, their focus remains on perfecting their lifestyle integration rather than explosive growth. Their watch business has reached the size they want, with some manufacturing moved back to the USA. The future belongs to sunglasses, particularly their floatable innovations that could disrupt established players.
Rich notes that they “won the lottery” in the sunglasses business by partnering with the same Italian factory that previously made sunglasses for Maui Jim and Costa before those companies sold for billions. With over 100,000 sunglasses in stock and nine new floatable models in development, Rockwell is positioned to capture market share from companies that refuse to solve the simple problem of sunglasses sinking.
But growth for growth’s sake isn’t the goal. Rich and Ariel have built a business that actually enhances their lives, something far more valuable than a big company.
Rich and Ariel’s insights offer a blueprint for anyone looking to create something that changes lives while staying true to what matters most, whether you’re building a family business, scaling a lifestyle brand, or wondering how to integrate your values with growth.
Ready to hear the full story? Listen to Rich and Ariel’s complete interview on the MountainWest Capital Network Podcast, where they share detailed insights on relationship-building, innovation, the compound lifestyle, and building businesses that feel more like adventures than work.
Connect with Rockwell:
- Website: rockwelltime.com
- Social: @RockwellWatches and @RockwellSunglasses (Instagram)
- Hero Mission: Use code “HERO MISSION” for their give-back program