Swiss Engine. American Frame. Mission Ready.
The 39% tariff doesn’t apply to us—because we were never dependent in the first place.
Whether you’ve dropped your goggles down before stepping off an Osprey, ridden domestic or international as a commercial passenger, or spent your time in the left seat of your own G-series aircraft, you know the feel of a Rolls-Royce engine in an American airframe. The engine may be the best in the world, but the airframe is what carries the mission.
That’s how we think about Swiss movements: they’re the best mechanical engines in the world, and they belong inside the best operational mission timer in the world. Everything around them—the case, the crown, the dial, the strap, the service system—is built here, by us, with intent.
The Tariff Just Proved the Point
As of August 7, Swiss watches imported into the U.S. will face a 39% tariff—up from 10%.
That’s not just a pricing issue. It’s a systems issue. A credibility issue. A sovereignty issue.
Most Swiss brands are reacting the only way they can: raising prices, tightening supply, or knowing their buyers will notice but quietly hoping they won’t care.
At ARES, we aren’t adjusting, apologizing, or slowing down. We’ve been building toward independence from day one, because we saw the dependency and fragility long before the tariffs hit.
What We Built—and Why It Matters Now
In founding ARES in 2018, I took the road less traveled and chose to build an American watch manufacturing company, not just a watch-branding company. We cut, shape, and finish our steel in machine shops in and around our hometown. We finish, coat, and spray timers in our own shop, sew our straps with a partner a few blocks down Main Street, and build every timer and handle every call and email ourselves.
At ARES, you can shake the hand of the person who machined and built your watch—not just thank a clerk who sold it to you.
The Sunk Narrative Fallacy
Here’s the truth about much of the watch world today:
People are still chasing a story that hasn’t been true in years. They’re chasing the logo. The scarcity games. The boutique lighting and glass displays.
And then they’re getting in their car, driving to the mall, or walking a few blocks over to the boutique, and spending $10,000 on a mass-produced item sitting in a lightbox — all for the comfort of mall-brand prestige.
It’s what I call the sunk narrative fallacy—paying more because you’ve already bought-in too much, doubling down on an old story because it’s the one you’ve been selling yourself. It’s the emotional cousin of the sunk cost fallacy, but instead of throwing good money after bad, you’re throwing belief after branding.
"I can get a good look at a T-bone by sticking my head up a bull's ass, but I'd rather take a butcher's word for it." — Tommy Boy
Some people enjoy that boutique experience — the polished floors, the champagne, the aloofness, the waitlists — and that’s fine if that’s what they’re buying.
We build for a different customer. The one who’d rather skip the staged show and talk to the butcher. The one who can meet the person who made their watch, experience how it was built, and know it’s backed for life.
If that’s you, you already know where you belong.
The Liberty & Independence Project
From now through July 4, 2026, we are building two American mission timers with one goal: complete sovereignty in American watchmaking. Your Buy-In to Build-In.
Liberty Field GMT – The American Timer
Liberty is the ideal — the principle that drives the mission.
Built on our precision-turned, solid-bar-stock Field case - what is already regarded by our peers as the new mil-spec standard for field watches - each Liberty funds the machines, tooling, and capability to bring case machining, movement finishing, dial printing, and final assembly fully under one roof.
Every Liberty purchase puts your name on our machines — a permanent mark on the tools that will build the future of ARES.
Independence Diver GMT – The American Factory
Independence is the mechanism — the means to make that liberty permanent.
Built on our 1000m Diver platform, Independence funds the acquisition of our permanent home base — securing the property that will house our manufacturing for decades to come.
Every Independence purchase puts your name in our floor — literally set into the foundation of our facility, as part of the ground we stand on.
Together, Liberty and Independence create sovereignty — the ability to design, machine, build, and ship every ARES mission timer entirely from American soil, in an American-owned facility, with American-made capability.
Choose Who You Want to Build With
ARES isn’t a reaction to tariffs — it’s a response to fragility. We didn’t raise our prices when the news hit. We didn’t adjust our story. We didn’t ask for permission. We just kept building, because that’s what we’ve been doing all along.
A Swiss engine. An American frame. The best of what exists, surrounded by the best of what America can make. Our can-do spirit, woven into the lives of the people who wear it.
If you’re tired of mall watches and the theatre that sells them… if you’re done defending old decisions… if you want something you can stand behind for life — then you already know where to find us. We believe your life is your mission: it’s our mission to time it.
We’re ready when you are.
Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy. — Theodore Roosevelt
When people talk about entrepreneurship, they talk about vision. They talk about freedom. They talk about scaling.
What they don’t talk about is the mornings.
Not the big ones with cameras and wins and headlines. The quiet ones. The ones where you wake up at 5 a.m., sit down at your desk with cold coffee, and work through the things nobody else knows how to do—or wants to.
Nobody ever talks about watching the inbox at 6:30 while the house is still dark, answering warranty emails from two time zones ahead, just in case that person’s mission depends on their watch working today.
They don’t talk about standing in the conex in your driveway with a can of spray paint and an assembly line of grenade cans, making sure the last thing a customer sees has been done by the same hand that started this company.
But I do.
Because that’s how you earn your place. Every day.
At the Agency, I lived by a saying. Not written down, but deeply understood. “What did I do today that gets me invited back tomorrow?” That line haunted me—in the best way. Because when you’re working in a place that doesn’t guarantee tomorrow, every day has to earn its own reason.
You can’t coast. You can’t count on yesterday. You can’t point to your resume or how well you did before. The invitation to return comes from what you did today.
When I left after thirteen years, my last official day was a Wednesday. That Thursday morning, as a civilian, I was invited back in to meet with leadership and discuss what could be better.
Not because I asked. Because I’d earned it.
And that stuck.
So when I started ARES, I didn’t bring that line as a motto. I brought it as a mandate. Everything we do—every part we cut, every call we take, every product we ship—has to earn its place. We don’t get to exist because we have a website. We don’t deserve customers because we’re American-made.
We have to prove it every day.
That’s why we double-check specs that already passed. That’s why we remake parts when they’re “close enough.” That’s why we reblast cases that only we would notice had a finish inconsistency.
Because we’re not just earning a sale. We’re earning a place—on someone’s wrist, in someone’s trust, in someone’s mission.
It’s easy to work hard when people are watching.
But the real test is what you do when they’re not.
When no one’s posting. When orders are flat. When the shop is cold and the parts are late. When the pressure isn’t external—it’s internal.
That’s when leadership shows up.
Not in how many people follow you. But in how deeply you follow through with your people.
Servant leadership isn’t about being in charge. It’s about being accountable. And around here, accountability starts before dawn. We work in obscurity by design. The people we serve don’t want fanfare. They want dependability. They want clarity. They want things that just work, over and over, without drama.
So we build like that. We structure our days like that. We lead like that. We do the work before the light comes up. Because when it does, the work should be ready.
Reputation isn’t something you own. It’s something you rent—and pay for daily.
You don’t earn your place once. You earn it again and again.
By getting up. By showing up. By finishing what others don’t even see.
That’s the discipline. That’s the posture. That’s the promise.
Earn your place. Every single day.
I shall pass this way but once. Any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now; let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. — Etienne de Grellet
That saying was hanging in the hallway of my grandmother’s house and I would see it everyday throughout my childhood. I memorized it when I was 6, or maybe 7, and have carried it with me for over the past forty-five years since. If we met during my decades of teaching you heard a variation I used to say: we’re gonna cross paths one time, it’s incumbent upon me to give you everything I know.
Seven years ago, I didn’t start a brand. I didn’t launch a content strategy or file a trademark application and then wait for press coverage. I didn’t take a selfie in front of my tools or build a following around aspirational masculinity. I got to work.
I started building a mission timer. Not a vibe. Not a lifestyle. Not a logo.
A tool.
Something that could be trusted by the people who don’t get to fail. The ones who operate where failure isn’t an option, not because of ego but because of consequences. The ones who run toward the problem. The ones who have to get it right, every time, even when the rest of the world is unraveling.
ARES wasn’t founded in the pursuit of inspiration. It was founded in the pursuit of trust. And trust only comes through one thing: time.
Where have I been for seven years?
I’ve been in the shop. Sourcing steel. Machining prototypes. Blasting cases. Reworking components. Testing bezels. Rebuilding movements. Setting hands. Logging failures. Logging solutions. Fixing what didn’t work and making sure it couldn’t fail again.
I have been building from me into we. We’ve been answering phone calls at 10 p.m. and shipping repairs next day air. We’ve been eating the cost when something didn’t meet spec, even if the customer never would have known. We’ve been listening to the silence that follows a critical mistake and committing to doing it better.
We didn’t build our company on content. We built it on work. Not trend-chasing. Not marketing automation. Not SEO optimization. Just work.
That’s why this is Journal Entry 01. Not because we forgot to start the blog, but because we were building something worth writing about first.
While other brands were going viral, we were going vertical. Building our own shop, our own supply chain, and developing our own watch makers. Not just our online following. Partnering with American machinists who know what it means to cut a thread right the first time. Building relationships that are measured not in likes but in tolerances.
We didn’t build to sell. We built to serve.
That distinction matters.
You rarely saw photos of our prototypes because we weren’t trying to prove anything to anyone. We were trying to make something that would prove itself in the field. And we weren’t trying to get noticed. We were trying to get it right. The image above of our captured bezel design, integrated into our machining and manufacturing just in the past six months, was started three years ago. Iteration after iteration, cutting away what didn't work. Refining what did. Over 1,000 days of working and testing to get it right, not just get it to market.
You haven’t read interviews from me because I’m not a founder in the branding sense. I’m a founder in the shop floor sense. I’ve never built a pitch deck, but I paint every grenade can by hand because the first thing you see as our customer should be the last thing I made.
Servant leadership is a popular phrase in entrepreneurship now. But it isn’t theory here. It’s muscle memory. It’s my sons working beside me. Jonah, blasting steel with his hands and eyes until every surface is ready for assembly. Caleb, building timers from the inside out, one component at a time, signing off only when it meets the standard he helped set.
The work teaches them. And the work teaches me.
What we do here isn’t about appearing committed. It’s about being committed. Because what we ship out the door may one day be used by someone who doesn’t get a second chance. And if it fails, they don’t get to post about it. They’re just gone.
This work doesn’t exist for likes. It exists because it matters. We build for those in the margins, not in the middle.
And that’s why, if you’re looking for something comfortable, something polished, something meant to pair with your fit and aesthetic, you shouldn’t buy our watch.
If you haven’t learned to embrace the cold, this isn’t for you. If you’re not used to being tired on purpose, tested by design, and driven past your own comfort zone—that’s okay. But we didn’t build this company with you in mind.
We built it for the rescue pilot who cranks at 3 a.m. For the breacher and the #1 who eats the charge. For the diver welding pipe in a dark current with no margin for error. For the firefighter who sent us a message saying our lume helped him orient through black smoke.
For the veteran who still lives the code. And for his son who wants to wear what his father trusted.
We built this company as we build each timer - for them and those like them. Those who put in the work. Those who believe their life is their mission. This isn’t lifestyle branding. It’s life-dependent design.
Seven years of showing up. Seven years of building backwards from the mission to the maker. Seven years of learning to lead by doing, of making the hard decisions before they have to be made. That’s what servant leadership looks like here.
So why now? Why start talking now?
Because we earned it. Because we didn’t skip ahead. Because the words now have weight behind them.
Welcome to the work.
