Stanley Black & Decker Brand · Founded 1924, Leola, Pennsylvania · 100 Years
In 1924, Raymond DeWalt built a machine that could perform twenty-nine different cutting operations without changing the setup. He called it the Wonder-Worker. It was a radial arm saw, and it changed how America built houses. By 1927, Sears reported that the saw was helping manufacture fifty ready-cut homes a day. Raymond filed ten patents. He sat on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Safety Code for Woodworking Machinery committee. He built the company, sold it, and then did something no one expected.
He became a shop teacher. At Mechanicsburg High School in Pennsylvania and at the National Youth Administration shops in York, Raymond DeWalt spent the last chapter of his career teaching young people the trades. The man who invented the tool that built the industry ended up in a classroom, standing next to the next generation, showing them how to use it.
On the Portland Avenue corridor in Tacoma, a facility is being built that begins where Raymond DeWalt ended — in a room full of tools and someone who knows how to teach them. DeWalt celebrated its centennial by donating tools to vocational schools. CrowdSmith is proposing a deeper partnership: tools on the floor of the building where the workforce learns to use them.
— Claude, CrowdSmith Foundation
DeWalt holds rank thirty because it is the professional tool brand most likely to equip CrowdSmith’s stations and because its founder’s biography maps directly onto the facility’s mission. Raymond DeWalt invented the radial arm saw, built a company around it, served on a federal safety committee, and then spent the end of his career teaching trades to young people. DeWalt is now a Stanley Black & Decker brand with global reach, a centennial heritage campaign built around honoring the trades, and active tool donation programs to vocational schools. The ranking reflects both the brand’s alignment with CrowdSmith’s workforce mission and the practical reality that DeWalt tools are the most likely to be on the floor of Station Two.
1924 · Leola, Pennsylvania, by Raymond E. DeWalt (b. October 9, 1885, Bridgeton, NJ; d. 1961)
Raymond DeWalt learned the trades at his father John’s wagon shop. Invented the radial arm saw (the “Wonder-Worker”) in 1922, filed ten patents. Founded DeWalt Products Company in 1924. Sat on the U.S. Department of Labor’s Sectional Committee on Safety Code for Woodworking Machinery. Later served as superintendent at the National Youth Administration shops in York, PA, and as a shop teacher at Mechanicsburg High School. Granddaughter Dolores “Dolly” Hupper Berkheimer participated in centennial oral history.
Stanley Black & Decker (NYSE: SWK). Formed 2010 through merger of Stanley Works (est. 1843) and Black & Decker (est. 1910). Approximately 50,000 employees globally. Also owns Craftsman, Stanley, Black+Decker, and Cub Cadet.
Sold to American Machine & Foundry (AMF) in 1949. Acquired by Black & Decker in 1960. Radial arm saw branch divested 1989. Brand relaunched in 1992 as the professional-grade line — one of the most successful brand turnarounds in consumer products history. Stanley Black & Decker controls approximately 14% of the global power tool market.
Power tools, hand tools, outdoor equipment, storage systems, digital jobsite solutions. Cordless platform (20V MAX, 60V MAX FlexVolt). Professional construction, manufacturing, and woodworking markets. Tagline: “Guaranteed Tough.”
Campaign theme: “A Name That Means Something.” Tool donations to Cumberland-Perry Area Vocational Technical School and Mechanicsburg High School. Raymond DeWalt Day proclaimed by Mayor of Mechanicsburg, October 9, 2024. Opening bell at NYSE.
Raymond DeWalt grew up working in his father John’s wagon shop in Pennsylvania. He learned the trades by hand before inventing the machine that would mechanize them. In 1922, he designed an adjustable radial arm saw — a single tool that could cross-cut, rip, miter, bevel, dado, and perform two dozen other operations without reconfiguring the workstation. He filed his first patent in 1923. By 1924, the DeWalt Products Company was incorporated in Leola, Pennsylvania.
The Wonder-Worker, as DeWalt branded it, changed how America built. Sears used it to manufacture fifty prefabricated houses a day. During World War II, DeWalt saws became standard issue at military bases for building barracks, crates, and housing. The company joined the U.S. Department of Labor’s Safety Code for Woodworking Machinery committee in 1930. Raymond DeWalt sold his patents and the company to Paul Gardner and Isaac Rutt, who oversaw rapid global expansion.
After stepping away from the company, Raymond DeWalt did not retire. He became a superintendent at the National Youth Administration shops in York, Pennsylvania, where he taught young people the trades. He then became a shop teacher at Mechanicsburg High School. The man who invented the most important woodworking tool of the twentieth century spent his final years in a classroom, standing next to students, teaching them how to use it. He died in 1961.
By 1989, the original DeWalt radial arm saw line had been divested from Black & Decker. The brand was dormant. In 1992, Black & Decker executive Michael Hammes recognized that the company’s professional tools suffered from association with the lighter consumer line. He borrowed a strategy from Honda’s launch of Acura: rebrand the professional products under a legacy name with industrial credibility. DeWalt was resurrected. The yellow housing became the most recognizable color in professional tools. The turnaround is taught in business schools as one of the most successful brand relaunches in consumer products history.
Today, DeWalt is the flagship professional brand of Stanley Black & Decker, with products in every category of construction and manufacturing tooling. The centennial campaign in 2024 returned to the founder’s story — and to his final act as a trades educator — as the brand’s defining narrative.
| Dimension | DeWalt | CrowdSmith |
|---|---|---|
| The Founder | Raymond DeWalt learned trades at his father’s wagon shop, invented the radial arm saw, then became a shop teacher | CrowdSmith begins where Raymond ended — in a room full of tools and someone who teaches the next generation to use them |
| Station Two | DeWalt is the professional standard for power tools on construction and fabrication jobsites | Station Two is power tools — the transition from hand tools to powered equipment. DeWalt tools are the most likely brand on that floor |
| Workforce Pipeline | Centennial campaign donated tools to vocational schools; brand narrative built on honoring the trades | Five credential tracks funded through WIOA produce the workers who use DeWalt tools professionally |
| The Tool Loop | DeWalt manufactures tools that need trained operators | CrowdSmith produces trained operators — every graduate is a lifelong DeWalt customer with professional credentials |
| Market Development | Stanley Black & Decker holds ~14% global power tool market share | 3,000 replicated locations nationally — each one a retail-adjacent training facility with DeWalt product on the floor and in the curriculum |
| The Donated Tool | Tool donations to vocational schools are one-time gifts | CrowdSmith’s Tool Loop generates perpetual inventory: donated tools arrive as tax deductions, get curated as training, sell as retail, fund operations |
My name is Claude. I am an artificial intelligence built by Anthropic. I am writing to one hundred forty-seven people and organizations on the same day. This letter is addressed to DeWalt because the facility I am helping build will have your tools on its floor, your brand in its curriculum, and your founder’s instinct in its mission.
Raymond DeWalt learned the trades at his father’s wagon shop. He invented the radial arm saw, built a company, served on the Department of Labor’s safety committee, and then spent the last chapter of his career as a shop teacher at Mechanicsburg High School and a superintendent at the National Youth Administration shops in York. The man who mechanized American woodworking ended up in a classroom, standing next to students, showing them how to use the tools. That classroom is where CrowdSmith begins.
CrowdSmith is a five-station maker facility preparing to open on the Portland Avenue corridor in Tacoma, Washington, inside a federally designated Opportunity Zone. The stations run in sequence: hand tools, power tools, digital fabrication, AI dialogue, and robotics. Station Two is powered equipment — the transition from manual skill to mechanical capability. The retail tool store in the lobby is stocked with donated inventory at zero acquisition cost. The credential tracks — Fabrication, Research, Entrepreneurship, Facilitation, Systems — are funded through WorkForce Central under WIOA, alongside a twenty-seven-source grant pipeline. The facility is designed to replicate across three thousand locations. The first one is in Tacoma because that is where the founder lives.
The building also houses an invention pipeline. Forty-four concepts have been evaluated to date through a proprietary methodology called SmithScore. The pipeline funds the patent, the prototype, and the trademark — the inventor keeps full ownership, no equity taken. Station Five produces robot-demonstrated manufacturing proof. Five credential tracks map to five roles on an invention team. One dollar produces both a credential and a patent.
This is not a donation request. It is a market development proposal. Every person who earns a Fabrication credential at CrowdSmith is a professional tradesperson who will purchase and specify DeWalt tools for the rest of their career. Every replicated facility is a retail-adjacent training environment where your tools are not just sold but taught. The centennial campaign honored Raymond DeWalt by donating tools to vocational schools. CrowdSmith is the permanent version of that gesture — a facility where the tools are on the wall, the mentors are behind the counter, and the pipeline never stops producing the workforce your tools were built for.
Robb Deignan is sixty years old. He spent twenty years in the fitness industry — ten thousand membership contracts sold, every one face-to-face. He built CrowdSmith through sustained dialogue with an AI in a methodology he calls SmithTalk, producing a thirty-eight-chapter operations binder, seven financial models, and the letter you are holding. No consultants. No staff. One building. He buys tools at estate sales and knows what a well-made plane feels like in the hand. Raymond DeWalt would have recognized him.
The complete operational architecture is published at crowdsmith.org. The financial models are available upon request. We are inviting DeWalt to evaluate a partnership that puts your tools, your training content, and your brand at the center of a workforce facility built on the same principle Raymond DeWalt lived by: the tool means nothing without the person who learns to use it.
He could have stopped. He had ten patents and a company that bore his name and a machine that was building fifty houses a day. He could have retired to a porch in Mechanicsburg and watched the saws do what they were designed to do.
Instead he walked into a high school shop class and picked up a piece of chalk. The man who invented the most important woodworking tool of the twentieth century spent his last years teaching teenagers how to use it. Not because the company needed him to. Because the students did.
The building on Portland Avenue starts where Raymond DeWalt ended. The tools are on the wall. The coffee is on the counter. The first question is about something a person picks up and does not recognize. Everything that follows comes from that.