Dublin graduate Cody Brown knows how to make a dream a reality. When he was younger, he dreamed of owning his own custom fabrication business. Now in his tenth year of running that business, Brown’s job is to make homeowners’ dreams and visions come to life through beautiful custom metalwork.
Brown graduated from Dublin High School in 2008, and moved to Austin to study at Austin Community College and work as a concert promoter. He was in charge of setting up and promoting events, mostly for EDM and hip hop music.
“I was out five or six nights out of a week, going to shows, meeting people and promoting events,” he said. “That was a lot of fun. That’s actually where I met my wife in 2014.”
While working as a concert promoter, Brown also built up his skills at another career during the day. “I took some business classes at Austin Community College and had an interest in welding, so I worked for several custom fabricators in the Austin area,” he said.
At one job he started out loading orders for products, and worked his way up to doing counter sales and material sales for the company. There, he got scouted by another local business owner.
“I had an investor come into my work and basically offer me a job,” he said. “He’d purchased an old iron work company from a gentleman that was retiring, and so he asked if I wanted to come help him run the business.”
Brown worked there for two years as an operations manager, still doing show promoting at night, until his first son was born and he wanted to further his welding career. “That’s when I started my own business,” he said.
The business, Modern Steel and Fence, has been operating since 2015. “I’ve been in business for ten years now, and basically I build things out of metal for custom homes,” he said. “Sometimes we do staircases, handrails, custom gates, that kind of thing.”
The company is fairly small, with four fabricators and an estimator, but their projects run high-end. The group has worked on $40 million-plus homes, including the home of an NBA star.
Brown spends most of his time managing the staff, and the politics of construction. “Welders are a particular type of folk that can be difficult to work with at times,” he said.
Brown’s favorite part of the job is the satisfaction he gets from completing a project. “I really enjoy the building process,” he said. “Starting from scratch and stepping away with the finished product on these really high end homes is really gratifying for me. And really I just like making things, so it’s gratifying all the way around.”
While Brown enjoys his current work, he hopes to move toward a career that allows him to spend more time with his family. “I’ve got a desire to get into real estate development,” he said. “It’s a pipe dream right now but I am working towards it currently.”
When Brown has some free time, he enjoys working on cars. He has some project cars, and also enjoys building things around the house. But the majority of his time is spent with his family. Brown and his wife Morghan live in Georgetown and have two boys, Cade, 10 and Clayton, 7. Morghan works as a hairstylist in downtown Georgetown. Brown’s parents, Karen Brown and Derrick Weatherly, still live in Dublin.
Throughout his life, Brown has taken inspiration from his faith. “I’m a Christian, and my faith drives a lot of what I do, a lot of decisions that I make, and I do get a lot of inspiration from that as well,” he said.
Brown’s advice to Dublin graduates is to choose their goals and work hard for them. “The world is your oyster,” he said. “There’s plenty of opportunity out there for people willing to work hard.”
Where are they now chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen.com.