05/10/2026
people occasionally ask where the name “brockit” came from
back in 1999, I was juggling a whole pile of creative work for clients: web design, audio engineering, large format printing, and photography. I needed a business name
at the time, I was working in Boston for a company based in England, and the engineering director handed me a children’s book written in regional dialect called “Brockit: The Fermtoon Cat” by Leslie W. Wheeler. I think he wanted me to talk like a Brit?
in the book, “brockit” was an adjective describing the coloring of farm animals. a brockit cow, for example, would be black and white. in this case, it was a black and white farm cat
I liked cats. the name was weird. nobody else had it. it stuck
so brockit was born
for the first few years, it operated as “Brockit Solutions,” a DBA while I took on all kinds of creative and technical projects. in 2001, the business formally incorporated as an S-Corp. please refer to the embarrassing photo of one of our first ads
eventually life pulled me north to Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula. and before anyone asks: no, I’m not a Yooper. I’m from Kalamazoo!
the first studio space was in the loft of our barn in Pelkie, which sounds romantic until you realize most people are not excited to drive to a barn in Pelkie for portraits
that led to partnering with the MTEC SmartZone, where brockit became one of the earliest tenants in the historic PowerHouse building in downtown Houghton. part of that process involved writing a formal business plan, and somewhere inside that exercise the business finally snapped into focus around photography
from there, things evolved quickly
we grew. added employees. moved studios a few times. eventually hired a graphic designer from Finlandia University whose senior project was rebranding the company. that process retired the original cat graphic after we collectively realized we looked less like a professional studio and more like a very stylish animal shelter
that rebrand became simply: brockit
fast forward a couple decades and here we are: still creating, still refining, still narrowing the work toward what matters most
established. grateful. still evolving. always shooting