EMERGING ENTREPRENEURS: Hearley shares artistic eye, carpentry skills with Northeast Wisconsin

Heather Graves

Staff

December 12, 2023

OCONTO – “I thought it’d be a great place to help build Oconto and let Oconto help build me.”

Born and raised in the City of Oconto, young entrepreneur Bryce Hearley said he couldn’t have imagined starting a business anywhere else.

“I grew up here – I love the city,” he said.

Thanks to a $10,000 microloan from Oconto County Economic Development Corporation, Hearley purchased a vacant building in the city and opened Scrap Yard Industrial Works – a metal arts and carpentry shop.

“Me and my guys that help me out always joke that the only thing we don’t do is concrete and carpet – we pretty much do everything else,” he said. “We do a lot of custom carpentry, one-offs, from start to finish.”

An interest sparked
Hearley said though his interest in carpentry didn’t happen until later, he’s always had an entrepreneurial spirit.

“I started doing odd jobs for everybody in the neighborhood – mowing grass, shoveling snow, cutting down trees, stuff like that,” he said.

After graduating from Oconto High School, Hearley said he moved to Rhinelander where he worked as a field technician for a forestry company.

“I traveled around the country for about five years doing that,” he said.

After moving back to Oconto, Hearley said the process of opening Scrap Yard Industrial Works went “pretty quick.”

“One day, I was working full-time, and the next day I quit and started doing jobs for people,” he said. “At first, it was anything that would pay the bills, and then it snowballed into doing a lot of high-end carpentry.”

As a high-end carpenter, Bryce Hearley describes his work as “rustic and outside-the-box pieces created with repurposed materials.” Submitted Photo

Hearley said he credits his creative side to his mom, Lynn, who used to own Iron Maiden Metal Art, a former metal arts business in Oconto.

“The person who got me into it was my mom,” he said. “She had a metal art business for years and years before she lost sight in one of her eyes.”

Hearley said one of his first major projects was the renovation of his mom’s metal arts shop into The Shop on Main – a coffee shop, gift boutique, art gallery and candy store (complete with an Airbnb upstairs) located on Main Street in downtown Oconto.

“The coffee shop, candy shop and Airbnb were labors of love – that’s where I got to let my imagination and my skill run wild,” he said. “Everything we used was stuff lying around – we repurposed it all. I was able to do what I wanted, and it turned out great, in my opinion. Those are probably three of the best projects I’ve ever done.”

Hearley said it meant a lot to work on the project with his mom.

“From electrical to the decorations, building all the counters, planning and everything else – it was me and my mom,” he said. “It was pretty much all her ideas I was able to bring to life for her. Then, I started having my own ideas.”

When contemplating the idea of opening up the business, Hearley said he had many conversations with his mom about the lack of a commercial-level option for custom, high-end carpentry work.

“Rustic and outside-the-box things created with repurposed materials – there’s not anyone you can call who will do it commercially or has the creativity to do it,” he said.

The process itself, Hearley said, takes a lot of time and resources.

“There are hundreds and thousands of pounds of steel at my shop all stacked away in storage containers that are available at my disposal when we need it,” he said.

Setting a foundation
As a 24-year-old custom carpenter, Hearley said he’s kind of in a group of his own.

“Carpentry, in my opinion, is an older generation trade,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot of new young blood getting involved in it. I’d like to be able to share the trade with the younger generation – it’s one of the things I’m passionate about.”

As pretty much a one-man operation and a first-time business owner, Hearley said he’s thankful for those around him who help out when needed.

“I’ve been blessed with the people I have around me who are willing to drop things anytime to come and help me finish a job,” he said.

Bryce Hearly said he uses a lot of reclaimed, refurbished items in his projects, which typically make his work one-of-a-kind. Submitted Photo

Hearley said the biggest challenge he’s had since opening was figuring out pricing.

“I always looked at a job and said, ‘ok, that’s going to cost $2,000 because that’s how much materials are.’ I never factored in my own time for doing it. It was a bit of a challenge figuring out how to bill my time and the company’s time.”

Hearley said coming up with a name wasn’t too hard.

“I named it Scrap Yard Industrial Works because of all the scrap steel and other stuff I had laying around,” he said.

Hearley said he doesn’t do any advertising for Scrap Yard Industrial Works, and doesn’t “go looking for work” – noting that much of his work comes from word of mouth.

“I’ve always said, even from a young age, ‘if you do a good job, (clients) will tell 10 people. If you do a bad job, they will tell 100,’” he said. “So, we strive to do a great job with everything we do, and I think word of mouth carries a long way.”

Hearley said one of the things that sets him apart from other carpenters, is “I like to be on quite the personal level with all of my customers.”

“I think that goes a long way, and I like doing it as well,” he said. “I can get a much better reading of what a customer would like if I’m a bit more personal with them.”

His willingness to “do really anything,” Hearley said, is also unique.

“We’ll try anything,” he said. “Whether it be some off-the-wall-idea that nobody I know has ever done or someone said it couldn’t be done – we’ll still try it and do our best at it.”

Hearley said his day typically started between 7-7:30 a.m. with paperwork before his help for the day arrives and equipment and supplies are packed into the trucks for the project of the day.

Some days, he said, are spent in the shop finishing a custom project – like a “big, old-style bar made out of barn wood, that we finished up not too long ago.”

Bryce Hearley said his willingness to “do really anything” sets him apart from other carpenters. Submitted Photo

“We always have a few people that stop in, and we throw around ideas (for projects),” he said.

Finishing one-of-a-kind pieces and projects, Hearley said, is what inspires him to look for the next.

“I like when we get something done that is one-of-a-kind, a unique piece,” he said. “We get to install it at the customer’s house and talk to a customer and tell them where the things came from and how it was built. Seeing how happy they are with having something that no one else will ever have – that is one of my favorite things.”

What the future holds for Scrap Yard Industrial Works, Hearley said, is unknown because “everything changes so quickly.”

“It’s hard to say what the future is going to be,” he said. “But, in my perfect world, I would like to have a couple of employees and be able to do this on a much larger scale, bring more people’s visions to life and spread my style of carpentry throughout the region.”