LAKELAND – Robert Berganza stood behind two large, wooden, triangular-shaped wedges at a work bench on a recent Thursday afternoon. The angled facets of the wood were perfectly smooth to the touch.
A task that has previously taken 34-year-old Berganza hours of painstaking labor by hand had been accomplished in seconds. The difference was having access to an expensive woodworking machine called a jointer-planer inside Catapult’s new Maker Space.
“When hours of work turns into minutes of work, each project is more profitable,” he said. “I can get to the point of getting those machines on my own much quicker. My intention is to come here, work hard, build my business and believe.”
Berganza, who builds sculptural furniture and artistic woodworking as Berganza Furniture, is one of many who have signed up to use Catapult’s 9,500-square-foot…
