TechShop CEO Brings Community and Collaboration to Sunset Park Manufacturing Center

By Everic White

When the NYCEDC announced that TechShop – a provider of instructional classes, professional equipment and software for DIYers – was chosen to operate a 15,000 square foot advanced manufacturing center at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, its new CEO Dan Woods would be tasked with manning the most serious investment in the industry since MakerBot’s failed attempt. The lifelong love of collaborative tinkering and attention to real-life application he manages TechShop with hope to offset unclear forecasts for manufacturers in the city.

Though New York City has gained 3,900 jobs in the manufacturing sector between April 2011 and April 2016, it lost an average of over 8,000 manufacturing jobs per year between 2001 and 2011. According to a study by the Center for an Urban Future, the sector only accounted for 2.1 percent of all private jobs in the city, less than half the 5.7 percent it was in 2000. While many lament the loss of these jobs due to outsourcing and labor concerns, Woods harkens back to his early years as a “Hewlett-Packard brat”.

His father worked with the computer manufacturer for nearly thirty years in the early community of scientists, engineers, and hobbyists we now call Silicon Valley. “Back then, it wasn’t about how fast you can flip a company,” he said, remarking on the spirit of exploration marking many of the ventures launched during his childhood. He met the co-founder of TechShop, Jim Newton, at the MakerFaire event he’d founded with his partner Dale Dougherty. not to find the next big company, but to “bringing people from all backgrounds together to communicate the possibilities of solving problems on a personal and local level”.

That thinking goes against what brought 3D printing and advanced manufacturing to the forefront of Brooklyn’s tech scene originally. MakerBot, named one of Time magazine’s most influential gadgets ever, established a headquarters in Brooklyn. It attempted to be the Apple of its time as the first consumer-facing 3D printer, but failed to catch on. The company laid off 200 of its 500 employees and moved its production to China in April, less than a year after announcing its Industry City location.

Woods would rather aim for smaller fish. Among many businesses and creations to come out of TechShop, like Kickstarter and Square, Dan is quick to mention Mark Roth a formerly homeless man who’d spent his last dollars on TechShop classes. Roth became a fixture at the San Francisco outpost, ultimately starting a program for other homeless makers called The Learning Shelter, and Abricate, a service that answers questions about maker manufacturing in real time.

This small-operation model, according to Woods, is the kind that transforms communities in addition to spurring economic development. The market has already confirmed that trend, with the average number of employees in New York City manufacturing companies dropping from 17.3 in 2000 to 13.4 in 2015, and from 16.8 to 12 in Brooklyn. Woods additionally sees value in products that don’t require a high amount of overhead or expertise.

“Of the dozens of products that come out of TechShop, some are definitely more industrial focused,” Woods said. “But the vast majority of products are developed by what we call ‘accidental entrepreneurs’: people who find personal solutions, and thus consumer products, to solve a particular problem very creatively, very innovatively.” That kind of small-batch creativity with personal solutions may very well sustain the promise of advanced manufacturing, according to Charles Euchner, senior researcher at the Center for an Urban Future.

“You can’t predict anything, but your chances are a lot better the more creative activity you have and the more everyday interactions there are among creative people,” Euchner said. “And not just in one industry, but in related industries as well, like the garment sector, aerospace and the drone industry.” The diversity of uses for advanced manufacturing is a result of that creativity. Euchner’s report ‘Making it Here’, about the city’s advanced manufacturers outlines dozens of companies innovating in the field, heralds “the creation of whole new products and the enhancement of old product designs.”

For Woods, though, it’s all about the community. He spoke highly of TechShop’s foray in Pittsburgh, specifically of the collaborators old and new that were able to come together “Machinists never used to hang out with young folk. Normally these people wouldn’t talk. Now they have common vocabulary," he said. Woods wants the Sunset Park project to be a bastion of that collaboration and community. TechShop doesn’t work in spite of its rich diversity; It works because of it."