MCADCafe recently interviewed Bre Pettis, CEO of Bantam Tools about several things regarding his past and current endeavors that interestingly involve additive and subtractive manufacturing.
Pettis has had many personal and professional iterations during his career, but has always stayed close to design and manufacturing. Pettis is probably still best known as the co-founder and former CEO of Makerbot Industries, a 3D printer/additive manufacturing (AM) company now owned by Stratasys. He left Makerbot in 2014. In June 2017, Pettis acquired start-up Other Machine Co. — now known as Bantam Tools — from its founder and CEO, Danielle Applestone.
Bantam Tools builds reliable and precise desktop CNC machines. Since 2013, the company has been manufacturing desktop CNC machines for engineers and product designers enabling them to bring machining in-house and accelerate their rapid prototyping processes. Its CNC machines are also widely used by educators in classrooms and makerspaces. The company is on an ambitious mission to build an ecosystem of hardware and software products that will empower its users to create sustainable energy sources, fight climate change, land on Mars, prevent the next pandemic, and close the growing skills gap in U.S. manufacturing.
Bantam Tools strives to keep as much of its manufacturing in-house as possible, and its machines are assembled and tested in-house in Peekskill, NY.