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Welcome to some of Brevard’s most creative spaces

On average, Americans spend roughly 90,000 hours of their lives working. When you consider for most of us, that translates to one third of our time here on Earth, that is a serious chunk of time. Statistics like these throw into sharp relief the importance of doing work we feel connected to, or, at the very least, don’t despise.

A global shift toward improving work-life balance in recent years has inspired employers to make workplaces more hospitable, stimulating, comfortable and collaborative. Businesses in Brevard County have hopped on board with this life-enhancing trend in a big way, offering everything from nap rooms and massages, to Taco Tuesdays and on-site boot camp classes.

We caught up with a few Space Coast companies on the cutting edge of creative workspace innovation, to chat with them about what, how and why they opted to think outside the box.

 

CinchShare, Melbourne



“It’s like our own personal clubhouse!”
—Jennifer Johnson, co-founder and owner, CinchShare

Any parent who has ever worked from home likely has a few hilarious tales to tell about the ongoing challenges. There also may be relentless guilt. This parent vs. professional war within is one Jennifer and Joel Johnson, owners of the social media management software company, CinchShare, are all too familiar with.

“Working from home with four children proved to be quite a challenge,” said 37-year-old Jennifer. “They’d come home early in the afternoon, excited to tell us about their day and ready to play. We felt guilty working, knowing they were nearby wanting our attention, and we felt guilty not working when we opted to visit with our kids.”

As CinchShare grew from small startup to multimillion-dollar social media scheduling brand, so did the team and workload. The Johnson’s decided to find a separate workspace outside of their home, to make it easier to focus on the growth of their business without interruption. Luckily, they were able to find a workspace around the corner.

“Our commute is 120 seconds long, we're THAT close,” Jennifer said. “We can bike to our office in less than 10 minutes.”

One of the things that sets this workspace apart is the lack of other employees. Though the CinchShare team has six employees, they’re all remote, communicating through virtual tools such as Zoom, Slack and Voxer. Other than the occasional client meeting, the office space, located in Melbourne, is solely used by the company founders.

This exclusivity provided a green light for the Johnsons to create the workspace of their dreams, no holds barred. The office has conference rooms and desks — Jennifer’s, though, is a treadmill — but also features a mini-theater, where their favorite movies can play in the background, a pool table and a pinball machine, kitchen, washer dryer and wet bar.

“Everyone who walks into our office immediately asks us what we do. Like they've never seen a fun office!” Jennifer said. “Who likes boring old cubicles anyways, right?”

The world of social media marketing exists in a virtual plane. One of the upsides to this is the access-from-anywhere flexibility. Platforms like CinchShare make it easy for business owners, direct sellers and network marketers to work from anywhere — a concept the Johnsons embrace.

“Our work requires us to usually be in front of a computer and/or phone screen, so when we’re able to step away, we typically leave the office and go kayaking nearby at Ballard Park. We think of our kayak as our office, too,” Jennifer said. “We brainstorm there out in the fresh air and sunshine together. It's the best office environment. We truly built the work environment of our dreams!”

 

Harris

When you think of the communications, weapons and intelligence giant Harris, you might be quick to assume their workspace is one straight out of the future. However, if you’re envisioning a space full of interactive technology, laser-powered coffee makers and virtual reality immersion stations — you’d be wrong.

At least about the coffee makers.

Easily one of Brevard’s biggest employers, Harris is home to roughly 6,000 engineers, technicians, professionals and support staff. The company’s world headquarters is in Melbourne, with additional facilities in several other south Brevard locations and a large campus, known as the Harris Technology Center — or HTC — in Palm Bay.

“When the Harris Technology Center opened in 2015, it opened the door for us to design spaces that employees love to work in,” said Mark Edwards, senior designer on the Harris Innovation and Executive Design team. “Once we decided to pitch the idea of these collaborative spaces to leadership, we consulted Dr. Robert Hoekstra, Director of UCF’s Idea Lab.”

The HTC has two creative work spaces, theHub and the User Experience Center. Both are designed with collaboration and creative inspiration in mind.

“We designed theHub to follow the concept of “Design Thinking” with a focus on brainstorming and ideation,” Edwards said. “This stemmed from the University of Stanford’s Design School and IDEO — an international design and consulting firm.”

After 123 years in operation, Harris remains firmly focused on bringing innovation to the areas of aerospace, defense, electronic and weather systems, space and air traffic control. With much of their work requiring collaboration between highly technical disciplines, creating a workplace built to foster those types of interdisciplinary alliances was of the utmost importance.

Features like state-of-the-art computer communications systems, interactive technology, colorful lighting and furniture, streaming music and a hands-on maker space define theHub and User Experience (also known as UX) Center. This space serves as the headquarters for Harris’ UX design team, which offers weekly UX “office hours” to consult with employees on projects and designs.

“Employees love the space for brainstorming, collaboration, creative thinking and meetings,” Edwards said. “The results have been very positive.”


Larsen Motorsports, Palm Bay

“Some days we work behind a desk. Other days we cook eggs with a jet engine, and drive 300 miles per hour.” — Elaine Larsen, President and Driver, Larsen Motorsports

Early one brisk January morning, the Palm Bay Fire Department was called to the Larsen Motorsports headquarters, located on the Florida Institute of Technology’s south Brevard campus. The shop where Larsen’s jet-powered race cars are built is what you might call a “safety minded, high-risk” work environment, and they admittedly keep the PBFD on speed dial.

Though this time, the fire department team was on site for something non emergent. One of the shop employees was tossing out a Christmas tree, and Elaine Larsen, president of Larsen motorsports and one of their most well-known drivers, suggested they fire up the jet engines and incinerate it for fun.

“We’re an adrenaline loving bunch,” Larsen said. “We’ve got to find ways to keep things interesting between races, you know?”

A traditional workspace this is not.

The world-famous, jet-powered race cars Larsen is known for are designed, fabricated, assembled and tested at the shop. Currently, Larsen has a total of six jet-powered hot rods, and four competitive race teams. Each team is comprised of a driver, crew chief, crew member, car chief and business unit. Prior to the rubber ever hitting the road,a tremendous amount of work is done by Larsen’s team of aerospace, mechanical and design engineers, technicians, fabricators and interns.

Thanks to a symbiotic relationship with Florida Tech, Larsen’s presence on campus provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students. In exchange for housing their headquarters on campus, Larsen provides hands-on training to some of the school’s best and brightest.

“These students get a chance to immerse themselves in the process. They learn how to really work alongside and communicate with a team on higher level projects,” Larsen said.

Between the flexible work schedule, high-excitement atmosphere and, um, hello — jet-powered race cars — the Larsen Motorsports team easily has one of the most non-traditional work environments around. It’s not, however, all fried eggs and Christmas tree burns.

Larsen, with a quarter-century of drag racing experience and two world titles under her belt, is straightforward about the potential for catastrophe that exists in the world of professional drag racing.

“It’s exciting. Every day is a new adventure, people love coming to work here, but this work has real life consequences,” she said. “We’re talking about getting behind the wheel and reaching speeds of up to 300 miles per hour, mistakes can mean the difference between life and death. But at the end of the day, this team and these kids really are making their mark on the high powered car industry.”


Roswell Global, Rockledge



“The open floorpan and collaborative space design means we can’t hide in our offices for days on end, which I think has helped our team become an even more tight knit group. I see the staff working together on projects instead of trying to tackle things by themselves.”
— Robert Oswell, Chairman and CEO, Roswell Industries Inc.

The first thing you notice upon walking through the doors at the Roswell Global headquarters in Rockledge is the wide open layout and bright, industrial aesthetic. From a style standpoint, it’s impressive immediately.

As you move past the reception desk and into the main lobby, you’ll come across a display featuring one of Roswell’s wakeboard boat towers, adorned with the super-powered marine speakers the company is known for producing. From here, you have a decent vantage point from which to view much of the front office space and you might notice what’s missing…  

Doors. They’re nowhere to be found.

When Robert Oswell, chairman and CEO of Roswell, and his team decided to redesign the front offices at their global headquarters in Brevard County, they set their sights on doing things differently. The company, which designs, manufactures and distributes marine products such as speakers and wakeboard towers, as well as home audio integration systems, opted for a wide open workspace. No one has designated desks, offices or cubicles. Instead, the layout features shared spaces with desks, tables and open rooms everyone can freely share.

“The open-concept workspace was designed to inspire and support our team’s global and collaborative structure. Being able to come together as a group, whether on a whiteboard or video conference calling, open communication is key to our company’s culture,” Oswell said. “We have multiple work areas and meeting spaces varying in size, each one has whiteboard walls and utilizes smart TVs to encourage brainstorming and organize group discussions.”

In addition to the open design and collaboration-focused environment, Roswell’s offices also feature a lunch and lounge space complete with pool tables and hammocks, a kid-friendly room for those days when you might need to bring your little one to work, a museum, an accessible-to-all CEO’s office, and a sound-proof audio testing room that looks like something straight out of the future.

“The open floorpan and collaborative space design means we can’t hide in our offices for days on end, which I think has helped our team become an even more tight knit group,” Oswell said. “I see the staff working together on projects, instead of trying to tackle things by themselves. We have a truly talented group of individuals with us and I’m proud to work so closely with each and every one of them on a daily basis.”

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