lululemon's Global Sourcing team is committed to producing our garments in environments that are safe and healthy, both for the factory worker and the surrounding community. Our team of quality and compliance experts spends a good part of the year traveling to our factory locations to insure these safe environments, as well as creating relationships with factories that share our core values. These relationships extend from Canada, the United States, China, Taiwan, Peru, Israel, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

In 2008, our educators in our lululemon stores were requesting more information on how and where our products are made. They wanted to provide our guests with a full understanding of our global factory environments so they could then have authentic conversations as to how our factories operate. We realized, what better way to provide this information to our store educators than to literally send them on an upcoming sourcing trip.

Two educators were chosen from a long list of strong candidates, and these two rising stars, Carolyn and Rob, accompanied Bryan, our head of global production, on a sourcing trip to China and Cambodia.

Rob and Carolyn spent two weeks shadowing Bryan and being part of the factory approval and garment production process. They inspected fabric, sat in on prototype reviews, did in line quality checks, watched third party inspections, and were able to see how lululemon insures that our products are produced in a safe and healthy environment.

Learn more about our people and our factories on the community legacies pages. For an inside look, check out pictures of our factory partners and more information on our global sourcing process here.

If you follow our photos on flickr or facebook, you'll know that here at lululemon we love few things more than jumping and goal setting! This past week, Shirley (our New Store IT Coordinator) managed to combine these two lululemon-loves into one.

Shirley has had it in her goals to go skydiving for years and years. She's written it down on our shared goal board, shared her goal with friends, heck - she even made a t-shirt with her goal emblazoned on it. Long story short, our jumper and goal setter extraordinaire decided to go last week, booked the jump on Thursday and jumped out of the plane on Saturday!

In true lululemon fashion she made an event out of it all! She wore her Adventure Shorts and "goal shirt", slapped on a few lululemon tattoos, decorated her outfit with yogo stickers, and even took a coworker with her.

Want to live vicariously through Shirley? Check our our photoblog of her big adventure below:

Above: Shirley and Rob heading out to Abbotsford for the big jump!

Above: Yep - she's signing her life away! (Shirley claimed she didn't feel scared one bit!)

Above: The trainees! Rob and Shirley get some pre-jump tips from the pros.

Above: The famous goals shirt! "I will skydive for the first time by July 2009". Great work Shirls! Way to put it in writing. Please note the lululemon tattoo. Shirley clearly loves her job!

Above: Rob and Shirley about to get all suited up ... and jump out of a plane! They made a "Do one thing a day that scares you" sign just for the mid-air photos and videos. I get scared just looking at the pictures!

Above: Of course, Shirley needed to do an on-ground pre jump jump, just to get prepared. And yes, those are lululemon stickers all over her outfit. Sadly we have yet to venture into the skydiving suit market. Design feedback anyone?

Above: Shirley - en route to the plane! Stopping in for a quick photo-op. Rob did a good job as photog.

Above: Shirley is all smiles pre-jump!

Above: SHIRLEY IN MID AIR!!!! They are somewhere between 10 000 ft and the ground. She gives us a thumbs up - and still claims she didn't even feel a tiny bit scared!

Above: Shirley with the sign! Apparently it was harder than expected to juggle a camera and a sign all while plummeting towards the ground. This is a skill that Shirley will no doubt master.

Any takers on joining Shirley on her next jump? There is no doubt in my mind that this is the first of many skydiving adventures for this girl!

Got a goal and need to get a few steps closer to achieving it? Writing it down is the first step! Visit http://goals.lululemon.com/ and create your future.

Want to see even more photos from Shirley and Rob's skydiving adventure? Check out the full photoset on flickr here.