Former tradies build million dollar business to help fund mental health projects

Two former Brisbane tradies are taking on the big boys in the $2bn workwear sector and at the same time improving young men’s mental health.

Former tradies Edward Ross and Daniel Allen now run TradeMutt. Pic Mark Cranitch.

TradeMutt founders Dan Allen and Ed Ross are taking on the big boys in the $2bn workwear sector and at the same time improving young men‘s mental health.

The former tradies founded the company in 2016 when a young friend committed suicide and they realised something had to be done to improve mental health in the construction sector

Their line of colourful workwear, designed to spark conversations about mental health, has been on a steep growth trajectory ever since. The men are now selling thousands of items every month that are worn by tradies working for Rio Tinto, Hutchinson, BHP, Brisbane City Council and Bretts.

Former tradies Edward Ross and Daniel Allen have established a new social enterprise selling work wear for trades. Pic Mark Cranitch.

TradeMutt has allowed Allen and Ross to fund TIACS.org (This Is a Conversation Starter), a free mental-health support service offering access to trained psychologists and support workers to all Australians. So far almost 1400 hours of free mental health support has been provided. TradeMutt‘s story will be told on Channel 9’s My Way this Sunday at 5.30pm.

“Ed and I met on a building site, and even though we came from different backgrounds we became best mates,” says Allen, a qualified carpenter and joiner.

“I am from western Sydney and Ed is from Longreach, but we shared a lot of the same interests. We were always spit-balling various ideas for businesses and gaps in the market, and we came up with the idea of workwear.”

Allen says the impetus to establish Trademutt as a social enterprise followed the death of his friend in 2016. Trademutt gives a percentage of its profits to mental health and suicide prevention programs throughout Australia.

Allen and Ross travel to schools, rural and remote areas, construction sites, and events across the country to spread awareness and educate communities about the importance of mental health.

“Mental health remains a major problem in the building trade,” Allen says. “It is a very macho environment, and if you show any emotion, you are a “pussy”. “Most blokes don’t even know they have mental health issues. The idea was to change that.”

COUNTRY GAL

You usually associate Keri Craig-Lee with haute couture rather than RM Williams. After all she did name her daughter Cartier.

But the Queensland fashion icon has actually served on the board of Australian Country Choice, one of the country‘s largest beef cattle companies, for many years with her husband Trevor Lee.

Lee paid tribute to the role of his wife when Australian Country Choice was inducted into the Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame on Thursday night.

Lee did let it slip that his wife often got frustrated at board meetings crying out “’not another cattle station” when the other directors spied an opportunity to add to the company’s property portfolio. Trevor Lee apparently lives by the motto that if he can see his neighbour, he buys him.

Keri Craig-Lee at her Ascot home in Brisbane. Picture: AAP Image/Josh Woning

COFFEE CLUB EMPIRE

Another inductee into the Hall of Fame, The Coffee Club, has expanded in the past 30 years from a single outlet at the Eagle St Pier to outlets in the most surprising of places.

Financial whiz Noel Whittaker and his lovely wife Geraldine, whom your diarist was sitting next to at the inductee ceremony, said they were astonished to find a Coffee Club outlet while visiting the famous Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi a couple of years ago.

The couple stopped over in Abu Dhabi on their way home from Paris to visit the mosque, which holds 40,000 worshippers, features 82 domes, more than 1000 columns and 24 karat gold gilded chandeliers.