Bre Pettis (born 1972/1973) is an American entrepreneur, video blogger and creative artist. Pettis is best known as the co-founder and former CEO of MakerBot Industries, a 3D printer company now owned by

Stratasys Stratasys, Ltd. is an American-Israeli manufacturer of 3D printers, software, and materials for polymer additive manufacturing as well as 3D-printed parts on-demand. The company is incorporated in Israel. Engineers use Stratasys systems to model c ...

Early life and education

Pettis was raised in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

. At the age of 13 he moved to the

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

area, where he later graduated from Bellevue High School. Pettis is a 1995 graduate of

The Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a p ...

, where he studied psychology, mythology and performing arts. After college, Pettis worked as floor runner and camera assistant on feature films in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

and as an assistant at

Jim Henson's Creature Shop Jim Henson's Creature Shop is a special/visual effects company founded in 1979 by puppeteer Jim Henson, creator of The Muppets. The company is based out of Burbank, California, United States. History Jim Henson's Creature Shop was originally ...

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He then attended

Pacific Oaks College Pacific Oaks College is a private college with its main campus in Pasadena, California and online degree options. The college draws on Quaker principles and focuses on social justice. It offers full and part-time undergraduate and graduate cours ...

and graduated with a teaching certificate. He worked as a teacher for the

Seattle Public Schools Seattle Public Schools is the largest public school district in the state of Washington. The school district serves almost all of Seattle. Additionally it includes sections of Boulevard Park and Tukwila. As of 2018, 113 schools are operated by ...

from 1999 through 2006.

Career

He is also known for

DIY "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and sem ...

video podcasts for ''

MAKE Make or MAKE may refer to: * Make (magazine), a tech DIY periodical *Make (software), a software build tool *Make, Botswana, in the Kalahari Desert *Make Architects Make Architects is an international architecture practice headquartered in Londo ...

'', and for the ''History Hacker'' pilot on the

History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Disney ...

. He is one of the founders of the

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

-based hacker space NYC Resistor. Pettis is a co-founder and former CEO of MakerBot Industries, a company that produces 3D printers now owned by Stratasys. Besides being a TV host and Video Podcast producer, he's created new media for Etsy.com, hosted Make: Magazine's Weekend Projects podcast, and has been a schoolteacher, artist, and puppeteer. He was the artist-in-residence of art group

monochrom Monochrom (stylised as monochrom) is an international art-technology-philosophy group, publishing house and film production company. It was founded in 1993, and defines itself as "an unpeculiar mixture of proto-aesthetic fringe work, pop att ...

at Museumsquartier Vienna in 2007. Pettis was featured in the

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

Print the Legend ''Print the Legend'' is a 2014 documentary film and Netflix Original focused on the 3D printing revolution. It delves into the growth of the 3D printing industry, with focus on startup companies MakerBot and Formlabs, established companies Stra ...

.'' He left Makerbot in 2014. In June 2017, Pettis acquired start-up Other Machine Co. — now called

Bantam Tools Bantam or Bantams may refer to: * Bantam (poultry), any small variety of fowl, usually of chicken or duck Businesses * Bantam Books, an American publishing house * Bantam Cider, an American cider company * Bantam Press, a British publishing imp ...

— from its founder and CEO, Danielle Applestone. In November 2019, Bantam Tools moved their facilities to Peekskill, NY.

References

External links

Bre Pettis website

Bre Pettis on The Colbert Report (June 8, 2011)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pettis, Bre American bloggers Evergreen State College alumni Pacific Oaks College alumni 1970s births Living people 3D printers Henry Crown Fellows

Early life and education

Career

References

Further reading

External links