At a conference in 1998, Rick and Eddy made an observation about the market for cooling products. "Rick and I were looking at lots of products at the Outdoor Retailer Show designed to keep people warm," noted designer Eddie Harber. "We wanted to make something to keep people cool."

Over a lunch break at the show, Eddy talked to Rick about a study he was involved in with the British military which showed that moving air over perspiring skin was the most effective way to cool personnel in hot conditions. He suggested that if they could maximize air movement over a sweating runner's skin by raising the fabric away from the their body using small nodes and opening up holes in the surface of the material, they could use the powers of convection and evaporation together via a cooling fabric. This classic napkin sketch followed, and the Stand-Off Singlet was born.

The material Eddy and Rick first used was a knit that was functional in terms of cooling, but heavier than the current running singlet fabric and more expensive. They decided to explore alternatives. With Apparel's Advanced Materials Research group, they began to think that somehow molding or forming the fabric was going to be the way to go. At a textiles show in Italy, RPM came across Miratec, a company specializing in advanced non-woven processes.