We honor the United States Coast Guard, founded on August 4, 1790.

Happy Birthday to the US Coast Guard!

The Coast Guard has been protecting U.S. waters since it was founded on August 4, 1790. It is the first Armed Service to guard the waters.

Initially, it was called the Revenue Cutter Service, or Revenue-Marine. With a fleet of ten cutters, members enforced tariffs, prevented piracy and smuggling, and protected valuable cargo.

In 1915, both name and mission changed. The Coast Guard enforces maritime rules, protects public safety, and guards 95,000 miles of US coastline. Coast Guard members train in security, rescue, marine safety, ice operations, and more.

Today, the Coast Guard has 40,000 active duty members. It’s about the size of the New York City Police Department. The U.S. Coast Guard is smallest of the five Armed Services. It is the only one housed in Homeland Security.

We are grateful for the service of the United States Coast Guard.

Semper Paratus! Always ready.

How we serve our US Coast Guard

Dawn’s Early Light Flags has been proudly serving the US Coast Guard since our establishment in 2002. We manufacture flags for all Military branches and all areas of our federal government.

The US Coast Guard uses our signal flags to communicate and keep us safe. We are so proud to be a part of this process and to have such a great relationship with our US Coast Guard.

In an effort to assist those looking for flags, we have added a new website. We set up a new online store to allow our clients to place orders online.

Please visit our new eCommerce site at yachtclubflags.us

Not to brag, but Jim Gluek has joined the DEL Flags team. The match could not be more exciting or perfect. Jim is a master sailor, born to water.

DEL owners, Ann and Mark Meyer, met Jim at the Pewaukee Yacht Club. Gluek was seeking a change. DEL Flag was hiring. Their shared interest in sailing was fortuitous. But things always happen that way for Jim. “Everything that has shaped my career has been personal,” he says, “connecting with people.” That single quality says a lot about him.

Born to sail, Jim grew up near Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota. His grandfather sailed, and his parents and siblings sail. He started racing at age nine and never stopped. For thirty years, he has lived and sailed on Lake Nagawicka. In winter, Jim’s favorite sport is ice sailing. He and his wife also love to ski. In warm weather, they sail four days a week. They love to sail.

To earn a living, Jim followed his brother into sewing sails. He has been a sailmaker for 37 years. Sewing flags is a lot like making sails. The products use the same kind of patterns and similar wind-rippling fabrics. Sails and flags both require precision of design and durability. It’s not a stretch for Jim to translate his skill set from sails to flags.

Ann is teaching him everything she knows, downloading her decades of expertise and knowledge into his competent hands. “I am gradually handing the lines over to Jim,” she says. “He is so precise and thorough and organized.” 

“My goal here is to help with sales and be a part of production and manufacturing,” Jim says. Promoting the company’s new line of yacht club burgees is a good fit for Gluek.

He’s been involved in ILYA, Inland Lake Yachting Association. His name shows up on top in many race results. With the COVID-19 pandemic, many events are cancelled. “We’ll miss the big regattas,” Jim says. It hasn’t stopped him from getting on the water. In fact, with less attention on competition, he is seeing a return to grass roots. “It’s been refreshing. Everybody’s focused on club sports in our back yard. Competing is great, but sailing is also about fun and socializing,” he says, and can’t help adding what he’s already said, “I love sailing.”

Pewaukee natives Mark and Ann Meyer established Dawn’s Early Light Flags in 2002 in Bellevue, Washington. There DEL Flags manufactured United States flags for the military and federal government from all military branches, to homeland security, to flags needed for the White House in Washington D.C. With rising in Washington, Mark and Ann decided it was time to move operations back home to Waukesha County.

With the help of the Waukesha County Center for Growth, DEL Flags was able to move to a Pewaukee based 2500 sq foot multi-tenant building to begin our operations here in 2018. In 2019, as we continued to move production to our area, we moved to a new 7500 sq ft facility in the Gateway Commerce Center in Brookfield.