Member Talk
Custom bikes on wall of the front area of Blue Mountain Metalworks.
For your information
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What you’ll learn n The advantages, opportunities, and challenges of taking over a business from a longtime NOMMA member. n How artistic metalwork and functional projects can be part of your business and incorporated on a single project. n The benefits and challenges of running a metal shop in a high elevation and winter sport resort area. n How everyone being boss can help everyone to function even better in a small shop operation. n The importance of “good faith” jobs to endear your business operations with the local community. n How one small metalwork operation in a resort area managed to keep going during rough economic times. CO NTAC T
Dirk Brown Blue Mountain Metalworks 567 Main Street Banner Elk, NC, 28604-8974 828-898-8582 828-898-8570 fax bluemountain@skybest.com www.bluemountainmetalworks.com About the author Peter Hildebrandt is a long-time senior writer for Fabricator. He is a general interest writer with a specialty in company profiles.
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Forging metals in the mountains n
Working in high elevations, especially in winter, make for challening installs and special opportunities. Just ask NOMMA Gold award winner Dirk Brown at Blue Mountain Metalworks.
By Peter Hildebrandt If you’re going to do the kind of work you love
doing, you might as well do it in a scenic place where there’s plenty of skiing, hiking, bicycling, horseback riding, golfing, rafting, and fishing. Surrounded by some of the highest mountains east of the Rockies, the Town of Banner Elk, NC, is home to a lively arts and crafts cultural scene that includes Blue Mountain Metalworks and its owner, Dirk Brown. Originally from Oxford, OH, Brown attended nearby Appalachia State University in Boone, NC, while also working in an area bike shop. After graduating with a bach-
*Ed Powell has another company now, Marric, LLC in Jacksonville, FL. Though this new firm is not involved in steel fabrication, Powell, through Marric, remains a NOMMA member. Powell reviews AMP (Architectural Metal Products) manuals. These brochures are guidelines for the industry. He also is an active volunteer in the Jacksonville area and is glad the metal shop he started up in Banner Elk is continuing with its metalworking mission. Fabricator n November / December 2011