Flash-Brake began when a roofer came into the shop Aaron was working in with a very crude tool asking if he could make more. The tool was fairly simple but not very well made, with an inconsistent slot that had warped because the handle had been welded onto it. The roofer explained that it was a tool used for bending the eave edge of standing seam metal roofs and that he needed someone to make the blades and that he would weld handles onto them. Aaron told him that he could make the blades, but that welding the handle would cause the slot to widen at the welded area and that eventually the weld would fail. He offered to make a handle that would bolt onto the blade rather than being welded, but the roofer wasn’t interested.

 

     Aaron made the blades and delivered them but he also made a set with his original idea for the handles. He didn’t know it at the time, but those tools would be the first run of the original Flash-Brake roofing tools. He kept them in his car and would stop to show them to roofers any time he saw them at a job site. After seeing the tools many of them were using and how impressed they were with his tool he began to believe that there might be an opportunity for a business that could make better roofing tools. He brought it up with Ben and they have since worked together to develop solutions to problems facing the roofing industry.