Manufacturing company expands to New Milford

NEW MILFORD — Matt Beenen, owner of BuiltRight Industries, said he and his team are always coming up with new inventions.

One of them is a bedside rack system, which, he said, his mother describes to her friends as the “California Closets for your truck,” said Beenen, 35, about the business, which is expanding into a building in New Milford that will be more than seven times larger than its existing 4,000-square-foot space.

BuiltRight, a design and manufacturing business of truck and off-road accessories on 53 Commerce Drive in Brookfield, is moving to 40 Still River Drive in New Milford — into a building that will be 30,000 square feet.

The new location, which is being constructed by Claris Design Build, is expected to open by late fall.

Beneen received special approval by the town of New Milford to build a structure of that size.

BuiltRight will use its new headquarters to conduct all research and development, manufacturing, and distribution activities, said Beneen, a father of two young daughters.

The area where the building will be constructed sits on a commercially zoned property that has not previously been occupied.

“Matt and his team are going to be taking about 20,000 square feet of the footprint,” said Mike Kozlowski, project executive of Claris Design Build. “We're prepping for 10,000 square feet of future tenant space that will be coming online on the market relatively soon.”

The new building will have an office space where the team will do engineering, customer service and marketing.

In the front lobby, there'll be a glass garage door “so that we can drive a vehicle in and park it in the lobby, either for engineering or a little bit of a showroom,” Beneen said.

Claris Design Build and BuiltRight Industries plan to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for the new headquarters at 10 a.m. June 10.

A need

BuiltRight, which started in 2017 out of Beenen's basement when he was living in Minnesota, was founded through a need.

He was looking for a device that provides access to the hidden storage space behind the rear seat of his Ford truck.

“I would have liked to have just ordered (the device) but it wasn't available,” he said.

"So, being a mechanical engineer, I decided that I would make one. I designed it, and I had 50 manufactured,” said Beneen, who moved to Ridgefield in 2019 to be closer to family.

He sold the device, which he called a rear seat release, to five friends — and broke even.

“Then I had these extra 40 sitting around and I decided I'd throw them up on a little website. And I posted about it on Facebook. I sold most of those that night and so kind of one thing led to another,” he said. “So that first product manufacturing run cost me just under $1,200 — And that is the only money that I've ever put into this business.”

The product has been a consistent bestseller with tens of thousands sold, he said.

Growth

When BuiltRight moved into its Brookfield space in 2019, Beneen said he thought they would be comfortable there for five to seven years. The business has an additional 4,000 square feet of overflow space nearby that's used for storage.

About a year ago, however, he felt he had “hit capacity.”

“We're sitting shoulder to shoulder and working shoulder to shoulder so we're kind of just treading water until we can get into this new building,” he said.

The business, which ships to customers around the world, has serviced 50,000 customers to date.

When searching for a town to expand the business to, Beneen said he observed there are many automotive type activities, businesses and enthusiasts in the Danbury, Brookfield and New Milford area.

“Just from an observational standpoint, as I drive through New Milford, I see a lot of pickup trucks, so obviously we'd love to earn the business of people but even more importantly than that, I think there's going to be some really great employees and team members in the area,” he said.

Beneen said he enjoys coming up with interesting new solutions to people's problems.

He owns a number of granted and pending patents, and attributes that to the growth of the business.

“I'm a mechanical engineer and so we're kind of an inventing engineering company,” he said.

Additionally, he and his employees are car and truck enthusiasts — so they have a

deep interest in the needs of their customers, he said.

“Our idea of fun on a Saturday is to be working on a truck or whatever it is,” Beneen said.

He said the products the company develops are intended for the average person to install without assistance.

"You're not drilling holes or anything like that,” he said. “So a regular, normal guy with a regular, basic set of tools can install our products.”

He said many of his best products come from “a customer saying something like, ‘Hey, can you figure out a way to mount a cell phone to the dash without drilling holes or whatever?'”

When people come up with like an idea and if they don't want to make it themselves or if they can't make it themselves, “they'll email me and say, ‘I'm not looking for anything but I'd love to be a product tester. Here's an idea,'” he said.

“We have the background and the skillset to bring those kind of ideas described to life,” he added.