About Grovemade® | Story, Portland Hometown & Product Design

Find What Matters

We've been operating in our hometown of Portland, Oregon since 2009. We reflected on who we are and what makes us Grovemade—here is our story.

The seeds were planted by pure chance when I moved my custom furniture business into a humble workshop backing up to the railroad tracks. Across the street in a run down home we called the “Fight Club House” lived enthusiastic entrepreneur Joe Mansfield. He was somehow running a very successful laser engraving and digital art business out of a spare bedroom. We soon became friends and would often throw a football around in the street—endlessly tossing creative ideas back and forth dreaming up the next big thing. One hot day in the summer of 2009, Grovemade was born. There was no business plan or much deliberation, only a moment where we went all in to “make cool stuff and have fun doing it”. We never expected it would turn into what it is today, with global reach and a great crew of fun-loving, hard-working trail blazers.

graphic of an array of grovemade desk products

Over the last thirteen years, we’ve been on a winding path to navigate the chaos of the human experience. Through luck, skill, and hard work we have been able to carve out our own version of happiness, with no investors breathing down our necks. It hasn’t been easy, and we have nearly gone under a few times, but we embrace the journey, learn, and get better. The challenge never ends, yet here we are, a team aligned and pushing hard to make great product on our own terms.

We wouldn’t want it any other way...

"The beginning was two friends and our spirit to create. Now we are so much more, a team."

KEN TOMITA

Co-Founder & Head of Product

Grovemade is headquartered in a 8400 ft2 former casket factory originally built in 1922. We are lucky to be in a quiet residential neighborhood across the street from one of the premier parks in Portland. A typical day starts with a cool breeze rolling in through the wide open garage doors as people trickle in with a cheery “Good morning”, sleeves rolled up ready to go.

We do design, marketing, supply chain management, and limited high skill manufacturing all under one roof—there are many different kinds of work to do and so little time to do it.

A primal cry echoes through the design department space. 3rd generation Oregonian Sean Kelly has unleashed his uncanny Chewbacca imitation. He’s been at Grovemade since college, starting as an intern, moving on to production manager, and finally to lead designer. He has all the trappings of a full fledged adult—house, family, a charming daughter—but he may be the biggest kid of us all, and we doubt that will ever change. He is a consummate designer, and he works hard to come up with the latest and the greatest for our customers.

His research space is flooded with inspiration boards, sketches, and cardboard models. Many of our visitors ask, “How do you come up with your ideas?” and of course, there is no simple answer. Creative inspiration is finicky, elusive to pin down. With Sean you get the feeling that his joyful spirit has something to do with the products we ultimately see.

physical design board including inspirational photos and notes

image of Ken and Sean working on product design

In the next room Christian Nielander is hard at work examining the latest batch of samples from a vendor partner in the Midwest. It's a new product—taking detailed engineering prints from Research and Development and turning it into a product you can hold is a careful, deliberate process. Originally from Reno, Christian started work at Grovemade right after college. He’s a learning machine—he tackles every job with no excuses, and gets things done. He’s the ‘Swiss Army Knife’ at Grovemade. At such a small place, it’s easy for this to happen organically, with responsibilities growing quickly.

A few feet away Dashia Fontleroy is on the phone with one of our local manufacturing partners, giving feedback on a new process they're rolling out. She left a good career in commercial construction to come work with us nearly a decade ago, and has never looked back. Dashia started on our production floor before rising to lead the entire production team, and now she is the primary relationship manager for our vendor partners— leveraging her people skills and years of manufacturing know-how to keep every ship in the fleet in tip-top shape and pointed in the right direction.

"Do Better. That’s what I think."

DASHIA FONTELROY

Relationship Manager, Quality Tzar

Over in the small workshop, Anthony is working to make a small run of a new product. He leads our small in house production team, doing specialized, unique work to help us continue pushing the envelope. Keeping our manufacturing skills polished helps us to move quickly and iterate—it's a crucial part of our history and unique skill set.

Our products push the boundaries of manufacturing technology while also being grounded in hand crafted quality and uniqueness. Back in the day, we made virtually everything. Today, we've shifted to doing only the most specialized work ourselves and leveraging the majority to skilled vendor partners that fit with our culture of iterating, learning, and simple transparency. We're lucky to still have this in-house team. Our shared experiences in manufacturing help us scale our high standards to deliver to a worldwide audience.

Hailing from a small town in the Willamette Valley, Sara Segura has risen quickly from our production team member fresh out of college to lead our product quality efforts. She’s one of those people that just says “yes” and figures it out, carving out a rapidly ascending career path through … too many roles to count. Her degree is in design, and she's discovered creativity exists not just in traditional visual arts but in how a spreadsheet conveys information or even how to have a difficult conversation with a partner that needs to step it up.

Max Brown is making minute adjustments to the composition of his next shot, jumping back and forth from the camera to his computer. Among other things, he is our photographer now because one day we needed one and we handed him a camera and told him to learn it. He works closely with Director of E-commerce Nick LaPlante who joined us straight from getting his masters degree in microbiology. Burned out on science, he originally applied for a woodworking position but we only had an opening in marketing. He adjusted his cover letter and we believed in his process over his experience. Let's just say that it has worked out well.

"I had never even picked up a camera before and now its like my main thing. It comes down to trusting people, you know?"

MAX BROWN

Graphic Designer & Photographer

Chief Executive Officer Jim Hassert is telling another one of his strange anecdotes mixing strategy, family stories, and a fable or two. Some of us aren't getting it but it doesn't matter— because you know he wholeheartedly believes it. Admittedly Grovemade was not well organized in the early days. Somewhere along the line we moved from trying to keep things from falling apart to proactively making our culture and operations better every day—and Jim is at the heart of that movement, whether he’s working closely with our admin team solving an accounting issue, or taking people out to lunch to see how they are doing. Even with lots more work to do, we’re glad to be here.

“Small business is a life adventure. When the people and the process come together, it all flows—aspiring to be great starts with doing something you believe in.”

JIM HASSERT

CEO

When you walk through here the fancy machinery and well made products are easy to see, touch, and feel. But great work comes from a place that is not so easily defined, not so easily attained. Our drive is the common thread that underlies everything. On an elementary level we believe that if people actually want to be here, results will take care of themselves. Even after all this time maybe that original plan to “make great stuff and have fun doing it” was not so bad after all…

The Grovemade team celebrate with some tasty donuts.

The Grovemade team on an outdoor offsite, carrying coolers and backpacks.

A few members of the Grovemade team chat outside.

That brings us finally to the question of why? Why are we here? Why are we doing this hard work?

We’ve thought about this for years and boiling it down to a simple statement has been elusive. Perhaps it’s too personal, different for each of our realities. Maybe showing up with a smile and a team-first attitude is the best way to describe it. But we learned this year that there was more to it than looking inward. We sought out our fans and customers, and were surprised at where that led us.

We discovered that you, our fans, come from all walks of life and from all corners of the world. The diversity was stunning. But we also learned that a shared purpose unites us all—to do great work and to live intentionally, caring and thinking deeply about who and what we choose to associate with. We are so proud to contribute even in some small way to your path.

In short, you inspire us to keep going. Thank you!