WE BUILD THE IMPOSSIBLE

Founded in 2008, Sheet Metal Alchemist was founded by Sean Cusack in an effort to fuse his chemical engineering and materials science knowledge with his love of metal work in an effort to make innovative metal art pieces. After 2 years of taking smaller metal working commissions as side jobs, Sean met his future business partner Lara Edge at his shop. Lara had also been a hobbyist metal worker with a background in public relations. After 6 months of working together, Lara and Sean decided to quit their full time jobs to pursue bigger and better commissions through Sheet Metal Alchemist.

FABRICATION BACKGROUND
Before becoming a full time fabricator, Sean Cusack was a full time chemical engineer in the startup biotech world. He had learned Solidworks from a high school internship, and used his skills as a mechnical drafter throughout college to make some side money. After moving to San Francisco, Sean used these skills to obtain a teaching position at Techshop for 1.5 years in metal work, electronics, welding, and CNC classes until becoming an Instructables.com resident artist in early 2013. Following acquisition of Instructables by Autodesk, Sean Cusack became the Pier 9 Workshop’s Operations Manager, in charge of maintaining, teaching, and using some of the most advanced technology available to fabricators in the world.

Lara Edge’s PR background starts with Charles Schwab, where she worked in corporate PR for 7 years. In this position, she gained her extensive experience as a project manager, managing multi-million dollar PR contracts. On her off hours, Lara learned metal working and how to weld from the community art group – the Department of Spontaneous Combustion. As she built her skills, she continued to build larger and more complicated metal sculptures. She is now also an instructor at Techshop, instructing in organic metalworking techniques, and welding.