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Updated 2 hours ago
Rich Sanders saw a chance to turn a passion into independence when he left his job at Google to strike out on his own in last fall.
Since 2014, the Army reservist had been spending his free time making customized steel weight plates, called ruck plates, carried in backpacks by competitors and athletes to add rigor to physical challenges.
Using his own patent, Sanders started his own company — SHplates — which customizes 1-inch thick, 10- to 40-pound pieces of steel with laser-etched images of customers' submitted photos. Prices range from $115 to $175.
Sanders, 26, of Shadyside started doing the work in the Tech Shop, a shared space in East Liberty's Bakery Square where clients, mostly hobbyists, pay to use professional manufacturing equipment to work on projects.
“It's like a gym for nerds like me,” Sanders says. “I pay a monthly fee, and I get to use all their equipment.”
He says the SH in SHplates stand for “Strength and Honor,” an ode to military service and Sgt. 1st Class Todd Harris, Sanders' mentor.
His respect for the military runs deep. After all, the Wall, N.J., native enlisted in the Army at age 17 for active duty, where he remained until he was honorably discharged in 2011.
Sanders sold about 2,000 plates in 2014, mostly through orders on his site, but he says that number has declined as more companies enter the market and undercut his price.
To shore up his business, Sanders has turned his focus toward customized steel decor, using lighter, thinner plates. Most weigh about 2½ pounds, are 8 inches by 12 inches and sell for $60. Steel patches about 2 inches by 3 inches in size, weigh about 10 ounces and sell for $17.
The production process involves repurposing jagged steel plates — Sanders gets his from Alro Steel in Findlay. He smooths the pieces by hand with an angle grinder and sander, powder coating the pieces and using graphic-design software and a laser-etching machine to transfer photos, text and other images to the steel plates.
He also has added a coating technique that allows the finished pieces to glow in the dark.
“This is something that just screams Pittsburgh. It's Pittsburgh steel,” Sanders says.
While many of SHplates' customers are military members, Sanders says the majority are civilians.
Air Force retiree Eric Zimmerman, 53, came across Sanders' work on a Facebook group for people who participate in GoRuck challenges, in which they carry ruck weights in backpacks for six to 48 hours to help build up endurance.
“When I saw the military pieces he did, it reminded me of a museum piece. … It was just beautiful. … It just really hit home,” says Zimmerman, a Biloxi, Miss., resident who has bought three ruck plates, two steel decor pieces and two steel patches from SHplates in the last year.
Zimmerman's first ruck plate from SHplates used an image from his Air Force basic training in 1981.
After leaving active duty in 2011, Sanders became an Army reservist. In 2012, while doing reservist training in California, he suffered a severe wrist injury on a Humvee that required surgery, and he lost his job doing demolition work for the Department of State after Hurricane Sandy.
He bounced around among low-paying jobs until he landed a contractor's position in Google's real estate and workspace services department in Bakery Square in 2014. For a while, Sanders ran SHplates while working at Google, but he soon recognized its potential. “I saw opportunity to expand what I was doing,” he says. “And I'm planning to go to grad school, so it just made sense to grow my business so I could go to grad school.”
Short-term, Sanders wants to simplify his manufacturing process and market his decor plates as gifts. Ultimately, he hopes he can expand enough to hire a staff made up of military veterans who would also mentor disadvantaged youth.
Tory N. Parrish is a staff writer for Upgruv.com.
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