Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Jenna and Travis Northern’s work is visible all over the Sweet Home community, on products ranging from commercial signage to customized sports team water bottles.
Their wood rounds were the trophies for the Sportsman’s Holiday parade, and they sent some 300 1-foot-by-1-foot metal ornaments to Washington, D.C., for the Capitol Christmas Tree last fall. They’ve created new signs for Salon W, in the 400 block of Main Street, and for RAM trucking in Brownsville.
The couple formed Magnum Metal Works and Laser Engraving in 2010, and the business has been running at maximum capacity pretty much since it started, said Jenna Northern. They have a C&C plasma table, a CO2 laser and a fiber laser.
“We can pretty much engrave anything,” Northern said, except glass.
Most commonly, Northern said, she engraves cups and water bottles. She makes cups for the espresso stands and water bottles for the U.S. Forest Service and the Albany Talking Gardens.
“I do all the high school’s water bottles for the teams.”
She handles all of the design work in a CAD program and operates the CO2 and fiber lasers, she said, while Travis handles the C&C table.
The Northerns are graduates of Sweet Home High School, Jenna in the Class of 2002 and Travis in the class of 1998. They have two children, Conner, 10, and Braxton, 4.
Travis had worked full-time in the business, but after his father died, he had to return to a regular job to handle the bills the family inherited on its Holley farm. Travis is working in maintenance for Rosboro Lumber.
Jenna worked at Lowe’s Distribution for seven years prior to starting Magnum Metal Works. She was one of the company’s trainers. Travis worked Georgia Pacific at the time.
They do not intend to expand their business, working extra hours as needed to keep it just to the two of them.
They formed the business when one of their sons had some health issues and the two decided that Jenna needed to be a stay-at-home mom. She’s able to slip back and forth between mom and entrepreneur quickly as needed.
“I needed something to do that I could do both,” Jenna said. “My husband also wanted one of these lasers. He’s just a tinkerer, just always wanted to create.”
Jenna said she told him he couldn’t have another one until the first one was paid for. It paid for itself in 30 days, then they bought the fiber laser, which is used to etch metal, and they’re close to buying another CO2 laser. dedicated to rugs, cutting boards and wood burning.
“I learned CAD just by doing it,” Jenna said, and they started by trial and error.
The possibilities for customized and personalized gifts are endless, she said, but the Northerns’ bread and butter is in the cups and water bottles, which Jenna sources as locally as possible.
When they started up their business, Jenna posted her products to Facebook, she said. Her friends shared it, and it spread from there, with friends in the community helping and supporting them. They have avoided marketing.
“We are so overwhelmed with orders,” Jenna said. They have no website, just a Facebook page where Jenna posts pictures of her work. People see their previous work for someone else and they send in orders.
“Somebody sees it,” Jenna said. “Somebody loves it. Somebody buys it.”
Today, they send orders across the country.
“I just processed over 100 bottles over two days,” Jenna said, and Rosboro just ordered “pressure tags. When I think it’s going to chill out, somebody else calls.”
Now, they can take handwriting and engrave it, Jenna said. They can put “gramma’s recipe” on a cutting board, a message on a cup for father’s day, an athlete’s name on a water bottle, custom markings on rugs or a meaningful message on a necklace. They design coasters, jewelry, wedding cups and ornaments. Sweet Home Choppers gets flasks engraved.
Jenna wears a necklace with the coordinates of a place special to her and Travis.
She draws up the designs in CAD software. When complete, the drawings guide the cutters and lasers for either burning, cutting, etching or engraving.
Magnum Metal Works promises a turnaround time of two weeks, Jenna said, but she’s usually able to get the job out within two days.
Their busy time is under way as fall sports have started, and they’ll stay busy through the Christmas holiday season.
“I love it,” Jenna said. “I love the creative part of it. I love giving something no one else is giving someone.”