Straight Outta Crumpton: How Toolfetch Helps Skill Trades

Not everyone recognizes the great things workers in the trade industry bring to our everyday lives. Skill trades and those who work as tradespeople help our infrastructure and make the buildings and roads we use every day. However, there are only so many people working in skill trades in the USA, with a recent static finding there are over 4,427 (96% of whom are men). As a result, it can be hard to get the word on how helpful these blue-collar workers are.

On this episode of Straight Outta Crumpton, Greg Crumpton talks with Andrew Brown, Co-Founder and CEO of Toolfetch, an online retailer for those in the trade skills industry.

Andrew was living in New York City when the World Trade Center attacks happened on September 11, 2001. He and his friend went down to help trades people find bodies in the rubble, and the experience changed him both personally and professionally. He quit his IT job in Wall Street, realizing that he had to do something else. “I had this idea in my head that I had to give back,” says Andrew. “How do I give back to the trades people on site that had given so much that day, and obviously throughout history? And I had some sleepless couple of months, nights, and that’s where I co-founded an online tool and equipment business named Toolfetch with my brother.”

They also discuss in this episode:

1) The stories Andrew has heard from trades people.

2) How Andrew puts out “consistent content” about the trades.

3) How Andrew hopes his website shines a light of encouragement on blue collar workers.

Since 2002, Toolfetch has continued to sell tools for skill trade workers (such as welders, plumbers, electricians). “We reach them by offering one of the largest online catalogues with over a million different products from six-hundred and fifty different vendors. So products like lifts, cement mixers, drain cleaners, harnesses, stuff like that. That is my way to give back to the trades people that have given so much.”

Co-founder and CEO Andrew Brown received his MIS/Finance degree from University of Rhode Island. From there, he went on to work in IT before founding Toolfetch in 2002, where he has worked since.