THE SHELLER is the Baltimore venture of songwriter, singer, and entrepreneur Shelby Blondell, whose creative side project grew from a 2017 crab feast into a patented Maryland-made tool. It was recognized with the $30,000 grand prize in Salisbury University’s Shore Hatchery entrepreneurship competition and is designed for people gathering around a crab feast.
U.S. Patent US10772338
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Sean Mann OutdoorsFrom Maryland’s Eastern Shore, Sean Mann Outdoors makes waterfowl calls shaped by Sean Mann’s more than 40 years guiding hunts and teaching callers. Mann developed the Eastern Shoreman goose call after finding store-bought calls lacking, then won the 1985 World Goose Calling Championship with it; his calls have since won more than 35 world and international titles. Turned calls are made one at a time in his shop, where every call is tuned before it leaves.TRAPPE, MD
steven b. rogersSteven B. Rogers is a Baltimore woodworker whose craft grew from a 2014 challenge to recreate a three-dimensional Maryland flag. For six years, he built projects outdoors in his parents’ backyard before establishing a garage shop, where he now works with family, friends, and local small businesses on custom pieces shaped by their ideas.
Early CharmEarly Charm is a Baltimore-based venture studio and product development company built to move licensed scientific ideas into practical products. Its integrated team takes projects from early research through prototyping, manufacturing, and commercialization for defense and commercial customers, operating from its own Baltimore-area facilities and a U.S.-based supply chain.BALTIMORE, MD
Picklehead LLCAt Picklehead LLC, teenage inventor Robert “RJ” Batts created Tip Tough®, a kitchen safety product designed to protect chefs and home cooks from cuts while preparing food. The company began after RJ sought a way to protect his professional-chef father’s hands and developed the product through the Young Entrepreneurs Academy while still in middle school. Picklehead’s products are made in the USA, and RJ now uses the business to encourage other young people to invent and pursue entrepreneurship.SALISBURY, MD