Automate America was founded in 2001 as a DBA. Wallace Automation was incorporated on 23 August 2004. The marketplace you are using opened publicly on 17 November 2018. Everything between those dates is why it works the way it does — and why posting work, applying to work and hiring someone here costs nothing.
This is the whole timeline, first-hand, with real dates. It is not a brand story. Some of it is not flattering. I have kept the parts that did not work, because those are the parts that decided what we built.
Contents
- 1998–1999: before there was a company
- 2001–2004: independent
- 2004–2009: a service company
- 2010–2013: integrator
- 2014–2017: systems builder
- 2018–today: marketplace
- Why all of this made the marketplace free
1998–1999: before there was a company
It starts on the floor, on real machines, for real programmes.
- January 1998 — I machine the deck-lid stamping die for the Plymouth Prowler.
- January 1999 — I begin programming automotive body-shop robots at an automation startup in Michigan: Ford Dearborn Stamping, Chrysler Sterling Heights Assembly, Chrysler Sterling Stamping and others.
Two years standing in front of machines that either run or do not. Nobody in a body shop cares what your title is at two in the morning when the line is down. That is the standard everything after this gets measured against.
2001–2004: independent
The business begins as a DBA — no corporation, just the work and the name.
- 2001 — The company is founded as a DBA. I work as an independent contractor in automotive automation.
This is the phase most people in this industry know best, and it is the one that taught me the most about what the marketplace had to fix. As an independent you carry every cost a company normally absorbs: finding the next contract, negotiating the rate, invoicing, and waiting. Especially waiting.
2004–2009: a service company
A name on paper, then other people's names on the payroll.
- 23 August 2004 — Wallace Automation is formed, Articles of Incorporation filed. Work runs through Gonzalez Production Systems, ABB Robotics and KUKA Systems.
- 15 October 2004 — First independent contractor hired.
- 1 December 2004 — First employee hired.
- 15 December 2006 — Heather Wallace leaves Valeo to run Wallace Automation full time.
- 27 August 2007 — Work spans Diverse Industries, KUKA Systems, Valiant Machine Tool and BMW. The company becomes WBENC-certified and Heather becomes the majority owner.
- 3 January 2008 — 15 independent contractors working for four of the nation's largest machine-tool builders, out of Detroit, Michigan.
- 1 July 2009 — First project in South Carolina, for BMW.
The moment you hire the first person, the arithmetic of this industry shows itself. Your people are only expensive when they are not working. A skilled engineer sitting between projects is the single largest cost a service company carries, and it is invisible on every report until it is not.
2010–2013: integrator
South Carolina, an office from a customer, and the first robots of our own.
- 2 January 2010 — Diverse Automation moves from Washington, Michigan to Spartanburg, South Carolina.
- 13 May 2011 — Over 30 programmers working direct and for suppliers at BMW Spartanburg.
- 1 August 2012 — First office, given to us by BMW, in Berry Shoals, South Carolina.
- 28 January 2013 — Laura Charles hired as Office Manager.
- 5 March 2013 — Bought our first in-house training ABB robot.
- 3 April 2013 — Bought our second R&D training robot, a KUKA KRC4 Agilus.
- 15 June 2013 — Top headcount of 52 employees and contractors.
- 17 June 2013 — BMW South Africa: nine programmers on site, on and off, for nine months.
- 22 July 2013 — Installed our first two robots, at Faurecia Fountain Inn, South Carolina.
- 12 August 2013 — Bought our third training and R&D robot, a FANUC LR Mate.
- 14 August 2013 — Second office, 260 Morley Court.
- 19 August 2013 — Hired our first Ph.D.
- 3 October 2013 — First vision system, designed, built, programmed and installed in-house.
- 4 November 2013 — Mechanical design department begins.
- 11 November 2013 — R&D begins on guiding drones with machine vision, and guiding robots from drone imagery. Accomplished.
- 5 December 2013 — Became FANUC integrators.
Thirty programmers at one plant sounds like a good year. What it actually is, is thirty people whose next assignment you are personally responsible for. When a programme ends, it ends for all of them at once.
2014–2017: systems builder
Building the machines, not only programming them — and going global.
- 6 February 2014 — Installed our first FANUC robots with a custom vision system.
- 27 March 2014 — Diverse Industries is rebranded to Diverse Automation, and receives certification from the South Carolina Governor's Office of Small & Minority Business Assistance.
- 9 August 2014 — First of many vision inspection booths ships.
- 2 October 2014 — First thermal imaging systems ship.
- 10 October 2014 — Installed our first vision-guided collaborative robot, at BMW.
- 5 March 2015 — Joined the RIA/AIA.
- 27 April 2015 — First aerospace R&D project funded 100% by a customer.
- 3 December 2015 — Bought our first CNC machine.
- 1 February 2016 — First project in Shanghai.
- 12 February 2016 — First project in England.
- 26 July 2016 — Awarded our first ABB collaborative YuMi project: two YuMis assembling small motor stators with vision guidance.
- 26 August 2016 — Installed our second CNC machine.
- 15 October 2016 — Diverse Automation Michigan opens its doors.
- 2 January 2017 — Officially open for business at Brushy Creek, South Carolina.
- 10 July 2017 — Moved to the 5th floor of 125 The Parkway, Greenville, South Carolina.
Shanghai and England in the same fortnight in February 2016 is the point where the constraint became obvious. It was never the technology. It was always the same question: who is on the plane, and are they any good? Every growth phase we had was capped by how fast we could find a specific person with a specific skill in a specific place.
2018–today: marketplace
- 17 November 2018 — Automate America launches publicly: a place for skilled professionals and the companies that hire them to find each other directly.
That is the whole entry, and it is deliberately short. Everything above it is the explanation.
Why all of this made the marketplace free
I have been on every side of this transaction. I was the independent waiting sixty days to be paid. I was the service company carrying engineers who had nothing billable in front of them. I was the integrator who needed six people who knew a specific robot, in a specific plant, by Monday — and could not find them at any price.
Every one of those is the same problem seen from a different chair: the work and the person could not find each other fast enough. And nearly every product built to solve it installed a toll booth at the exact moment the connection was trying to happen. Charge the professional to apply. Charge the company to post. Take a cut for making an introduction. Bid the rate down until the good people stop answering.
So this marketplace does not do that. It is free to post, free to apply, and free to hire.
- If you have work sitting behind a requisition, posting it costs you nothing. You write what you need, you name the rate you are willing to pay, and it goes out written, designed and published across every channel on our dime. Trusted professionals apply to you directly, and nothing gets bid down. Post your work here, free.
- If you are a service company, this is the part that gets missed most often. A contract is never only work for one individual — it is work for your idle bench. Your non-billable engineers are your single largest cost, and you can apply your own available employees straight to open contracts here. That means you can take on work bigger than your own headcount without hiring for it first. I know exactly what that would have been worth in 2013, because I had 52 people and no way to do it.
- If you are the professional, you apply directly, to a named rate, without a recruiter in the middle deciding what you are worth. Browse every open contract.
We are a global marketplace for skilled work — automation and controls, electrical, robotics, mechanical, software and the trades, across industrial, commercial and residential work. The full dated timeline also lives on our company history page, and the short version of who we are is on our about page.
One question, and I want the argument as much as the agreement: which chair are you sitting in right now — independent, service company, or the plant trying to staff a line? And what is the one thing about finding people that nobody in this industry has actually fixed yet? Tell me I am wrong about the toll booth. I would rather hear it than not.
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Tony Wallace
Co-Founder, Automate America
PO BOX 1638, Greer, SC 29652
automateamerica.com
