A few years after Meg Hammond graduated from college, she joined a youth conservation corps to teach environmental stewardship to elementary school kids and clear trails in the New Hampshire woods.
“I learned how to use a chain saw. I learned how to fell a tree,” Hammond recalled. “I learned how to sharpen tools, how to take care of tools, how to use the tools.”
Fast-forward about 25 years, and Hammond still marvels at the tools at her disposal. In the metal shop at Burlington’s Generator Makerspace, where she now serves as executive director, a plasma cutter can shoot a beam that will slice through a piece of metal lying on a giant square grate.
Access to this equipment makes Generator a boon to makers who have a vision but no room or money for such colossal and advanced machinery, Hammond said. “It’s freaking amazing what this place is.”