Converse relinquishes TinkerMill duties to focus on startup

LONGMONT — After two years leading TinkerMill, Scott Converse has turned over those duties so he can focus his attention on a startup that hatched in the Longmont makerspace.

Clint Bickmore, chief technology officer at Longmont startup Change Composites, recently replaced Converse as president of the TinkerMill board. Ron Thomas, meanwhile, is being converted to a full-time employee as executive director after serving in the role on a part-time contract basis since December.

With TinkerMill — a nonprofit that provides space and tools for all kinds of member artists, scientists, engineers and other creatives — up and running smoothly, Converse decided it was time to step back into a less active role. He will remain on the organization’s board, but will now leave the day-to-day operations completely up to Thomas.

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TinkerMill has about 275 members, and Converse said it’s “operating in the black.” The 10,000-square-foot makerspace at 1840 Delaware Place is funded through memberships, licensing of space to startups and classes.

“I’m one of these guys who loves starting things but not so much running them,” Converse said in an interview Friday.

Converse’s new venture, ExtractCraft, was born out of tinkering with a new device at TinkerMill. The company, which he founded with fellow TinkerMill co-founder Lee Sutherland, is making a device for people’s home kitchens that extracts essential oils from any plant-based materials.

ExtractCraft raised about $100,000 in funding, including much from TinkerMill members, to build prototypes, and the company soon will launch a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign.

The startup, Converse said, is a case in point of how TinkerMill has become not only a makerspace but also a sort of “accidental incubator,” with multiple startups housed there.

“The (ExtractCraft) prototypes were made there,” Converse said. “The company was funded there.”