- Growing up as a skateboarder, I never thought that I would have my hands on all of these skateboards every day.

But now they're not skateboards to me anymore, they're lamps.

(rock music) Hello, I'm Aaron Novak.

- Hi, I'm Glenn Miller, co-owner of Whiskertin Lighting.

- [Aaron] I've lived in Akron for 23 years.

- I've been in Akron for almost 20 years.

- I met Glenn through going out, nightlife in Akron, seeing bands play.

- We've had a lot of good times and been through some rough times here and there, but it's been a pretty good journey.

- I got into the HVAC field doing heating and air conditioning and that's kind of where the idea for the lighting business started.

I was at work one day.

We install HVAC systems in commercial buildings.

In the bars and restaurants now, they don't put ceilings in.

I always thought the exposed ductwork looks really cool, industrial.

And so I brought a piece of scrap ductwork home.

- Aaron called me up one day and he was like, "Hey, I wanna turn this discard piece of ductwork into a light."

I was like, "Cool.

I'll be over."

- And so that's kind of where it started.

It's been about four years.

So, six months before that we were kind of just tinkering around and building lamps in my basement and trying to get an idea of exactly where we wanted to go with it.

So, the name is very obvious.

We both have rather large beards obviously and so that's where the "whisker" part comes from.

And then the sheet metal for "tin" is the part from our original ductwork light.

I ended up getting an offer to pitch our lights to Great Lakes Brewing and the owner was like, "Our business is about reusing our products, "so we think it would be cool "if we could send you home with kegs "and you could make lights out of those."

and so that's what really opened things up.

Anytime we see an object we're like, "Could this be a light?"

- We've evolved in a lot of different skills and kind of taking inspiration from everything around us.

Everything I look at I say, "Oh, that could a light."

- We're gonna build a skateboard light out of this skateboard.

It's one of the most iconic skateboard designs of all time.

We'll have an idea, we'll bring it to the table, normally Glenn's the one who puts together the parts.

A lot of times we start off with one idea and by the time it's over it's changed completely, but for the better.

We have a lot of customers that bring us things.

And then on top of that we go to flea markets and stuff looking for objects that would be good light fixtures.

- It's a challenge to turn something that's not normally a light into a light and then to give it an artistic vibe and not just be the standard light that you find at the store everywhere that just comes right out of a box.

- We work full-time hours, but we're both still working our full-time jobs and so we're burning the candle at both ends doing this, but we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

We have a blast some nights.

Some nights obviously you're tired, but just coming down here and laughing together, and making memories.

There you have it.

Whiskertin skateboard lamp.

And then we've met so many people that we would have never crossed paths with if we wouldn't have gotten ourselves out there.

(rock music)