Creating collaborative manufacturing maker spaces

By Dani Sheehan. 

Learn about the unique role the roofing industry can play in creating entrepreneurial hubs and educational spaces for underserved areas. 

Kyle Nurminen wears many hats. From Navy veteran to entrepreneur, he founded Dynamic Metals which has a patented retrofit metal roof system that he now uses in their sister company, Total Roofing Systems – The Metal Roof Experts. In Season 5, Episode 64 of Roofing Road Trips®, he joined Heidi J. Ellsworth for a discussion around another passion of his – bringing opportunities to the inner city. Discussing his own ideas for inner city vitalization, he hopes to inspire the roofing industry into action. 

Having entered the industry as a problem-solver around the time back-to-back hurricanes were hitting Florida in the early 2000s, Kyle has never stopped looking for solutions to concerns he sees across the industry. During a recent expo, the conversation focused on how the roofing industry fuels the future generations of our businesses. He discovered maker spaces around the Tampa Bay area and started mapping those areas as resources for employers and technical schools to tap into. From entrepreneurial spaces to business development and engineering design, he shared, “We’re realizing these kids are working with their hands, and they’re learning technical skills and they’re learning business skills, and they’re learning how to market and run a business model. And it has nowhere to go because they have nowhere to have a collaborative manufacturing, to set up an assembly line.”  

He equates it to someone presenting an idea on Shark Tank and having the judges respond, “Well, you got a good idea, but you’re asking me to do everything?” This is where the roofing industry plays a unique role. Kyle continued, “There's available neglected space all throughout our urban areas. The roofing industry is so entrenched into those investors and those building owners and revitalizing those buildings and on the roof side system and all that. They have contacts. We have the network. They just haven't had much success getting through government to get these buildings donated.” 

Wanting to fill this gap, Kyle started SeedRegion1.com to help create collaborative manufacturing facilities and create education and existing business for skilled laborers who may not have had the opportunity otherwise. Essentially by creating these maker spaces in their own backyards, he wanted to encourage existing companies to further invest in the area. 

While the website is no longer available, Kyle has not stopped in his passion to make this project successful.

Read the transcript, Listen to the podcast or Watch the webinar to learn more about this incredible initiative and how you can be part of the solution.