Bre Pettis of MakerBot
If the rise of 3-D printing is, as some are calling it, the next industrial revolution, the Brooklyn-based startup MakerBot could very well be at the helm of the next age of manufacturing. The firm led by Bre Pettis, 40, produces desktop technology for turning digital designs into physical objects — toys, machine parts, medical equipment, and yes, even less benign creations like gun parts — in a matter of minutes or hours. With its newest model, the Replicator 2 desktop 3-D printer, priced at $2,200, MakerBot is placing itself at the vanguard of a technology once reserved for giant industrial institutions, increasingly within reach of everyone from hobbyists to NASA researchers.