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JOPLIN, Mo. — Some of the biggest companies in the world started out of a garage. And one area facility might be able to help you do the same thing.

It can be a daunting task to go from one career to a completely different one. The same can be said when it comes to working for yourself, instead of someone else.

But Josh Howard made both of those transitions, with some help from the Advanced Training and Technology Center (ATTC) in Joplin.

“It’s allowed us to expand fivefold of what we had previous, it’s helped increase our productivity and our workflow, it’s allowed us to purchase some machinery to automate our processes and increase our client load and our workload,” said Josh Howard, Owner, Happy Trees Table Company

After choosing to leave the corporate world behind he and his wife started a woodworking business out of their single-car garage, Happy Trees Table Company was born.

Howard happened to see a social media post about the ATTC back in December, just two weeks later, he and his wife moved their business from their garage into this facility, and he couldn’t be happier.

“Any individual or entrepreneur that’s thinking about starting up a new business, they need to come in and visit with us at the Joplin Chamber of Commerce to talk about what’s available to them within the entrepreneur ecosystem. That can be from manufacturing, tech, software development, or just a service type business online, we have something for everyone,” said Doug Hunt, Director of Entrepreneurship, Joplin Chamber of Commerce.

At Happy Trees Table Company, a single vertical slice of wood from a tree starts out like this and ends up like this. The stunning turquoise color comes from filling in the voids in the wood with a cured combination of epoxy resin and mica powder. He made his first table after the passing of his father, and the more family members and former co-workers saw his work, the busier he became.

“When I started making some cutting boards for co-workers, and we sold one, and then we sold five, and then we sold twelve and so it’s like this actually might have something to it,” said Howard.

While moving to their own facility is some time off in the future, he says he is happy right where he’s at.

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