As a professional drag car racer and metal fabricator, Moduline Cabinets President Paul Gill developed a line of high-end aluminum cabinets, as a hobby, to meet his needs as a professional racer.

Colleagues in the racing community noticed and demand grew. Now the Brockton, Massachusetts-based company’s products are sold not only to race teams and auto enthusiasts around the world but to homeowners, the military and a host of multiple industries.

Gill started his precision sheet metal fabrication - Gill Metal Fab Inc. – over 25 years ago.

“We did anything from wood stoves to satellite components. We did a big array of different products or parts,” Gill says. “About 20 years ago when I started racing, it’s true that I made some of my own products for my trailers and stuff like that. Then people liked them and everything, so it was kind of a spin-off, and I just kept making more.”

One of the reasons he decided to start making his own aluminum cabinets was because he wasn’t satisfied with what he saw on the market. Gill says he needed a variety of different sizes and features that were not available. He needed cabinets that were not only lightweight but also able to withstand the tough environment of racecar driving. Based on his background in precision sheet metal fabrication he started making cabinets to fit those specifications.

It was approximately 17 years ago when Gill says that Moduline Cabinets was born to focus solely on the garage cabinet side of business.

“Basically it’s like running two businesses doing the OEM fabrication stuff for other companies and then making cabinets,” he says. “When it started, the cabinets were only 5% of the business. The OEM manufacturing was 95 percent but now to-date the cabinet business is 95%.”

Gill says the company uses its expertise in fabrication to manufacture components for NASA and make satellite parts, nuclear parts, as well as the custom garage cabinets.

“That’s why we’re able to do all kinds of customs installs. We service such a wide array of industries besides garages, he adds.”

Racing professionals, who were key to the company’s initial garage business success, now only represent a small portion of the company’s current sales mix. Mainly it’s residential garages, auto enthusiasts – basically high-end, luxury homes, he says.

Moduline has three cabinet lines. The primary one is not just custom it’s a modular combination with standard modules and from there customers have different ideas and things they want to do, Gill notes. “They might want to put a safe in the cabinet or they might want to mount a TV in between the cabinets.”

The company also has an R&D program where it constantly develops new ideas and tests them to see if they are viable to bring to market.

Gill says that since Moduline’s cabinets have a modern and contemporary look, some customers have opted to have them installed in their kitchens. However, Gill says they don’t advertise their kitchen work because it’s not really the market they are aiming for.

Moduline’s cabinets have a modern and contemporary look, some customers have opted to have them installed in their kitchens.

One of the company’s most unique projects was for the military. The company fabricated cabinets for 400 mobile command centers that were shipped to Iraq during the work.

For more on Moduline, visit modulinecabinets.com.