Welcome to Ohio Flame. Thank you for checking out my company and showing some interest in learning more about me, my company and what we do. If you’re taking time to read this page, I’ll give the courtesy of sharing a real story…my story. This isn’t a fabricated article drafted by some big PR company or some fancy high level marketing company, this is my story, and it is written by myself. My name is Matt Skillman. I created Ohio Flame in my garage in the Spring of 2009. I am also the President & CEO of Ohio Flame. I don’t let the title go to my head. I'm also the artist that cuts out all of the Artisan Fire Pits, and most times I will be the person that will be answering your phone calls and emails. I believe that our customers deserve the best in customer service, and I would rather answer your calls directly than send them to some offshore answering service. My story began well before I started making fire pits, and I feel that it has everything to do with what it is that I do now.
Starting from a very young age, I was known as "an artist" by my friends and family. I’ve always had a passion for creating and making things that were not yet seen. As a child, it was Legos, building blocks, making things out of cardboard boxes, paint, clay, you name it. Then in school, it was on to drawing, painting, sculpting. I knew that my future was in the Arts. I attended Youngstown State University, pursuing a Bachelor in Fine Arts which I received with Honors in 2003. During my time at college, I worked for a local steel company. The company was flexible with my school schedule and I liked working in the industrial atmosphere. There was something about steel that I enjoyed. In a way, I could say that it "felt" familiar. My father, and also my grandfather, both had worked for steel companies for a good portion of their lives. I felt that there was some kind of lineage or family history to it all. As much as I still loved art and creating, I put that on the back-burner, and took a sales job for the steel company after I was finished with college. I really enjoyed my new role as a flat-rolled steel salesman. Visiting the steel mills, arranging freight, working with customers. It was all a lot of fun for a young 26 year old, until it was over. The Great Recession hit hard, and in 2008 I had lost my job.
As I contemplated what was next, I felt that my career was only getting started, just to hit a roadblock. Just as quickly as it happened, it was seemingly over. I was 28 years old, still “a kid” to most of the people that I had worked with. I thought I had nothing, but I had to do something. One evening when I was trying to get my mind off of all of the stress, I tried to enjoy a fire in a cheap foreign made fire pit that I had in the backyard. After only two years, the thing had fallen apart, leaving a rusted out fiery mess. A few days later I grabbed some steel and crudely welded together my very first fire pit. I had no plans of a business at the time, or any lofty mission in mind, I just got creative and made something that I thought was going to be as sturdy as I could make it. Some people suggested that I “sell those”. I seriously doubted there was any kind of market for fire pits, but I listed a few of them for sale on eBay and Craigslist. To my surprise, there was interest. I started generating a few local sales and soon starting showing them at local art shows.
I was not a welder, and these fire pit required welding. The closest person I knew that could weld was my uncle. The only problem was that he wasn’t the easiest person to talk to. He was a Vietnam Veteran who had served in the US Army, and he had a very gruff personality that was very intimidating when I was a kid. I needed fire pits welded up, so I mustered up the courage to ask him for help. I was fortunate that he said yes. As it turned out, he wasn’t at the kind of man that I remembered him to be when I was younger. He was a kind person, and a person that saw some things that had changed him. I enjoyed our time together, and was glad that we got to reconnect during what ended up being the short amount of time that we had. One evening after welding, he told me that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, most likely due to his exposure to Agent Orange while over in Vietnam. He showed me how to weld, so that during his treatments he wasn’t around the fumes. Sadly, my Uncle Dave passed away in March 2011 from throat cancer. In his remembrance, I vowed to be patriotic about making these fire pits; Keep it Made in America, support our US Military, be Proudly American always. All of these ideals, all based on how it started, with my Uncle's help. I called the fire pit, “The Patriot”, in his honor. As I continued, I felt that I had an ideal to hold onto.
A few months later, I received an email from a large online retailer that wanted my fire pits to be listed on their website. From that, my company received more exposure, and this started to be a decent side business. Up until then, it was just a side business. There was my 9 to 5, and then my 5 to 10. My full time job was working with a steel processing company. In 2012, they asked if I wanted to take my business full time. With their guidance, I was able to take the leap and make Ohio Flame my full time job. Since then our brand has grown and we've seen our products on television, in movies, and in many beautiful resorts, locations and backyards all over this country. I still get the same sense of satisfaction working with steel and helping our customers as I did early in my career.
There are two things that I try to tell younger people when they are getting started in their careers. First, "Everything in life is preparation for things later in life. There are no wasted experiences." I started as an artist, who later got an experience working with steel, and then became a salesman. When I lost my job, I thought, "Great, now what do I do with all of these pointless things that I did not succeed in?" The answer was to combine them and find a way to make a living from it. Experiences that I had, things that I had learned, they were not wasted. They were in preparation for things later in my life. The second thing that I would say, is "Opportunity through adversity". When I lost my job and felt so overwhelmed at what could or would happen next, that was some real adversity during that time. But it was those tough times that helped me find an opportunity. Looking back on it I can say that if you want to make a tough product, you better be able to withstand the tough times to make it through to the other side.
We've been blessed to see our business grow over the past 16 years. It's a privilege to get to do what I do. Even though this started out as a side business in my garage, it has grown to become a team effort. An effort made possible in thanks to my hardworking employees, our amazing vendors, supportive family, friends, and our valued customers. Thank you for choosing our products and helping us support American Made!
Matt Skillman
President & CEO, Ohio Flame
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