At its foundation Past Lives is a Southeast Portland makers space occupying a 26,000-square-foot building with ground floor industrial space for full wood shop, metal casting and machining and ceramics.
Upstairs is space for fine arts with painting, sculpting, machine embroidery, leatherwork and 3D printing. There is also private art space members can rent for workspace or storage.
Where Past Lives differs from other such spaces is its mission to create good-paying jobs for a segment of the population that faces increased barriers to employment. The company focuses on employing people who were formerly incarcerated or other marginalization.
It’s creating jobs within the organization and also within a fully licensed design-and-build business that can be hired to do any kind of residential or commercial renovation. The company has a team of 14 that grows based on the number design-build contracts or other custom fabrication projects it has.
“The maker space feeds into the design-build, and with the design-build business we create employment opportunities for people coming out of prison,” said Brandon Morlock, founder of Past Lives.
The space has more than 100 members. About 10% are formerly incarcerated. Members have access to all the shops and equipment. Each shop requires an orientation. There are more in-depth classes for anyone who wants them.
“The cool thing is we have all this equipment and more than 100 people who know how to use it in various trades,” said Morlock, adding that his ultimate goal is to create a labor collective with guaranteed pay scales and raises and health insurance.
“This design-build firm is one example of the thousands of business models we can create out of this community,” he said. “We get the maker space perfected. Get the design build running smoothly. There is so much work for contractors and construction. We have a ton of carpenters and woodworkers and engineers and electronics people. We can do anything.”
Plus, it provides space for artists to make a living at their art.
Past Lives focuses on supporting those coming out of incarceration is a personal mission for its 29-year-old founder. Morlock started the company in 2020 when he was released from prison. He served five years for a car crash that killed his friend.
“I decided to make something useful and honor the memory of Ryan who was trying to help (me build a collective space),” Morlock said. While in prison he worked as in the library, where he had time and space to come up with a business plan for an idea he had been thinking about prior to his incarceration.
He used $2,500 he had saved from his prison paychecks as well as proceeds from selling his car to rent a 10x10 space in a warehouse in Portland. He made wooden jewelry and frames in that space with some people he met in prison. The goal from the start was to provide employment at more than minimum wage for himself and others in a similar situation. While the group worked in the small space, he met someone who happened to be storing a large amount woodworking equipment. That meeting would get his trajectory started.
“He asked me a million questions (about what I was doing) and 45 minutes later he gives me the key to a storage unit where he had woodworking equipment and told us to take it all and someday pay it back. We got $30,000 of woodworking and art equipment” Morlock said.
Using his stimulus check from the federal government he rented a bigger space and started selling memberships to use the space and equipment. Soon someone in the building with a metal shop added their equipment to the space.
Morlock and other members started doing custom fabrication and subcontract manufacturing. Eventually, Past Lives outgrew the space. Last year, the company moved into its current space in southeast with the help of Glenn Dahl, the former CEO of Dave’s Killer Bread.
Dahl is a minority partner in the business and mentor to Morlock.
“I have been in the second chance arena for years,” he said.
The Dahl family bakery, which was behind the brand Dave’s Killer Bread, has steadfastly supported the namesake Dave, Glenn’s brother. The bakery famously brought Dave into the company after he completed a prison sentence and made offering employment to those with criminal records part of its mission. That company sold in 2015.
“I thought we could do something,” he said of teaming with Morlock. “My goal is to do something special and help people with little or no government money. What we are doing with Past Lives, the idea is that if we are all banding together, and many members are second chance members, we can start lifting people up.”
Part of Dahl’s work with Morlock has been connecting the young founder to mentors to help him navigate building a business.
“Morlock is a very unique individual. He borders on genius at times but has a lot of inexperience,” Dahl said. “He thinks of things I never would have. The guild system (he’s building), I believe long term will be a the mainstay of Past Lives.”
