Massage therapists, musicians and writers have home-based business in the Sherman Hill neighborhood, along with Sherry Jasnos, who employs a small team to manufacture sky-diving jump suits in her basement.

Jasnos and her staff of two produce 12 to 15 custom-made jump suits per week through her business, Firefly Unlimited, which operates from her home at 756 17th St. The company has customers all over the world, and is one of only about 15 companies that specialize in jump suits, she said. Jasnos caters to both individuals and the U.S. government in need of custom jump suits.

“The sky-diving industry is so small that you can go to any drop zone and somebody knows somebody that you know,” Jasnos said. “I recently had one guy order in Israel, which led to seven orders, and I’m doing my first Croatian order this week.”

The people who wear Firefly’s jump suits are typically experienced jumpers, Jasnos said. On average, customers pay $250 for a suit manufactured to their color and design specifications. The customers provide their measurements, and then include a sample of the design they want, or in many cases, just a sketch. Then, Jasnos goes to work with planning and cutting out the suit’s fabric.

“It’s almost like Christmas for them (the customers) when they get their order,” Jasnos said. “You’re making something for them that they envisioned, in their colors and their fit. There’s constantly a challenge. You’re not building the same suit day in and day out.”

Betsie King, who has worked for Firefly for about a year and a half, said she enjoys the variety of the work, although she remembers being taken aback during her jobinterview when she was told about the kind of sewing she would be doing.

“I wondered what kind of a market there was for jump suits in Iowa, but they had sales numbers to back up what they were doing,” King said. “I had worked at Wells Fargo (& Co.) for five years, but I’m not much of an office type. I like this because very seldom is the work repetitive.”

Jasnos has four industrial sewing machines, a couple of large tables with guides for cutting and lots of fabric and thread crammed into her basement work area. Supplex and four-ply Taslan are the two lightweight nylon fabrics she uses most often to make the jump suits.

“We’re known for our quality and durability,” she said. “I’ve had people wear them easily through 3,000 jumps.”

Right now, Jasnos is designing a speed suit for a sky diver she sponsors who plans to compete for the world record for the fastest freefall. It is her first speed suit, but she said she is confident that she has a good concept for its design.

Jasnos was a part of the sky-diving industry even before she could walk. The second-generation sky diver said she grew up around airfields, and even at home, her dad was often found repairing parachutes or doing some project related to the sport in the family’s apartment. She completed her first jump at age 16, and like the rest of her immediate family, her life revolved around sky diving.

“My dad started sky diving before I was even born,” Jasnos said. “After he got back from serving in Vietnam, we ran sky diving schools as a family. My dad and brothers were pilots and instructors. I typically managed the office and packed the parachutes.”

Jasnos said she was ready to get out of the family business and do something a little different and less time-consuming when she got married. At the time, her sister was building jump suits as a way to make extra money, and she saw that as a way to stay connected with the industry, while leaving behind some of the liability risk associated with running a jump school. She and her sister started Firefly, and Jasnos took over as its sole owner when her sister went on to work at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.

Jasnos brought her business with her when she and husband, Jason, moved to Iowa about two years ago. The couple had been living in Venice Beach, Calif., but the high cost of living and heavy traffic had diminished the luster of the California coast, she said. Jasnos said she was not afraid of moving to Iowa, since she had lived all across the country as an “Air Force brat.” When they found the Craftsman-style home in Sherman Hill, they were sold on Des Moines.

“This house would have been literally $750,000 in California, if there had been anything like this available,” she said. “We liked the area, and it was really appealing to us that the area was zoned commercial-residential, since we both had jobs where we could work from home.”

Jason Jasnos launched his graphic design business, Jason J. Designs, from their home, and Sherry claimed her space for her jump suit manufacturing business. Not knowing anyone in Des Moines, she faced the challenge of finding qualified seamstresses and training them to make jump suits, but “the past six months have leveled off and been smooth,” she said.

Now in its sixth year of business, Firefly is ready to grow, but not “too much,” Jasnos said.

“I don’t want to make the mistake of sacrificing quality by us getting too big,” she said. “I like to keep it small so I can have that hands-on contact with each suit, and I like being able to set my schedule so that I work four 10-hour days.”

Jasnos plans to hire another employee in a couple of months when she and Jason move to larger house nearby on 20th Street. The couple has been working on restoring their new home, where they hope to be living and working by May.

“We’ll no longer be working in the dungeon; we’ll have actual windows,” Jasnos said.

Jasnos admits that she’s been so busy with the business since she moved to Des Moines that she hasn’t had much time for jumping herself. She has “only jumped about 1,300 times,” she said, “which is not much for working in the industry.” In comparison, her dad, who continues to jump at age 73, has an estimated 10,000 or more jumps to his name. In addition to the thrill of the sport, she said she loves the people.

“It’s an activity that draws people together from all facets of life,” she said. “You’ll see construction workers and physicists become friends when they meet on the field and find out that they both love sky diving. It’s amazing to see the worlds collide.”