Inventing the vertical panel saw out of his suburban Minneapolis garage in 1958, Safety Speed founder, the late Gene Olson started writing our story in 1958. He owned a construction company in Minneapolis but had trouble keeping up with his carpenters due to having polio. He identified the need to efficiently and accurately cut large panels of wood easier than with his table saw. He put together a frame and attached a SKILSAW to make cuts and quickly realized that he had a million-dollar idea. He left the construction industry altogether and founded Safety Speed Cut Manufacturing, a name which stood until 2011 when it became Safety Speed Manufacturing to reflect that Safety Speed no longer was just about cutting.