WILBRAHAM – Burnt Blue Line is a new local home-based company out of Wilbraham that began in April of 2020.

“We do custom engraved products from wood, glass, acrylic and stone,” said Owner Brett Whitcomb. “We mostly work on wood at the moment, but we also do custom engraved watch bands from leather as well as family portraits and memorials.”

Whitcomb told Reminder Publishing the business started as a hobby wood engraving items by hand for friends and family as a way to pass the time. Whitcomb is a full-time police officer in the New England area while running Burnt Blue Line on the side. In the past, he was a police officer in southern California where he met his wife. Once they got married, they moved to Wilbraham.

“It was the beginning of COVID last year and I was making flags by hand for first responders, firefighters, military and police officers,” Whitcomb said. “My stepdad and mom were in town and I was playing around with the idea of starting a business and he came up with the idea of calling it Burnt Blue Line because I am a police officer, and the symbol blue line is something we stand behind.”

Whitcomb’s initial intent was to make and hand paint flags then sell them. One of the first encounters he said that took off for the business was when he posted a memorial he made for his boxer breed dog Bobbi Jo who passed away. That led to the business doing more memorials where they use photographs of loved ones and pets.

“This has been a community driven thing,” Whitcomb responded. “We moved out to Wilbraham to start a family and to grow up so that’s the phase we're in with Burnt Blue.’

He went on to say, ‘I want to grow with the community. Hopefully, I’ll be able to hire some people and overall be a company that’s out here supporting and helping Wilbraham the best I can.”

Right now, Burnt Blue Line is doing a lot of their business on Facebook where interested parties can contact them through their page, facebook.com/BurntBlueLine. They also have a website: burntblueline.com or can be reached by email at burntblueline@gmail.com.