Tallawah Works LLC

Founder's Story

Kurt Poorman is a visionary mechanical engineer and the founder of Tallawah Works LLC, bringing over 20 years of expertise in progressive product development. Combining high-level creative strategy with rigorous technical competency, Kurt specializes in bringing complex ideas to life across the IoT, biomedical, agricultural, and consumer product sectors.

Holding multiple design patents and bringing a wealth of experience in advanced CAD, FEA simulation, and Design for Manufacturing (DFM), Kurt bridges the gap between innovative concept and physical reality. Beyond traditional electromechanical engineering, their multidisciplinary skillset spans startup mentorship, intellectual property strategy, and emerging AI technologies, making them a comprehensive partner for businesses looking to innovate, scale, and achieve perfect product-market fit.

Business Description

Some Ideas Deserve More Than a Pitch Deck.

They deserve engineering. They deserve craftsmanship. They deserve someone who won’t rest until the product in your hands matches the vision in your head.

That’s the reason Tallawah Works exists. Born from a Gap. Built for Builders. In 2016, the heartland of America had no shortage of innovators — inventors, entrepreneurs, and scrappy startups bursting with product ideas. What it lacked was serious engineering product design support built specifically for them. The big coastal firms catered to Fortune 500 budgets. The rest were left to figure it out alone.

Tallawah Works was founded in Des Moines, Iowa, to close that gap — to give start-up founders and independent inventors access to the same caliber of product design and mechanical engineering expertise that until then had been reserved for the well-funded few. Nearly a decade later, that mission still drives every project we take on, now serving clients across the United States and Canada. We Don’t Just Design Products. We Tell Their Story. At Tallawah Works, our mantra is simple: clarity in design, strength in engineering. We believe every physical product communicates something to the person who holds it — and we are passionate about making sure that story is told with precision and intention.

Our approach is holistic. Before a single CAD file is opened, we assess a product’s viability, form, function, validation requirements, and aesthetic direction. This isn’t a checklist — it’s a philosophy. Because a product that fails in the market isn’t a product; it’s an expensive lesson. We help you skip that lesson. Full-Spectrum Product Development, Start to Ship with a combined team experience of over 60 years in design and engineering, Tallawah Works offers a rare end-to-end capability under one roof:

• Product Design Feasibility Studies — Rigorous assessments of
manufacturability, design for industrial assembly, and product claims before you
commit resources.

• Prototype Design, Build & Testing — We build functional prototypes — not
pretty models — then stress-test them so issues surface in our studio, not on store
shelves.

• Concept to Market Execution — From the first sketch to final production, we
shepherd your idea through every design and engineering milestone.

• Product Rebranding & Redesign — Existing products that have outgrown their
design or need to compete in new markets get a rigorous engineering and aesthetic
overhaul.

• Manufacturing Support & Product Management — Our support doesn’t stop at
the factory door. We assist with product management processes while your product is
being manufactured, so nothing falls through the cracks.
Proven Across Industries

Tallawah Works has designed and innovated products across a wide spectrum of markets, including beauty and personal care, biomedical devices, industrial machine design, safety products, professional tools, and fitness equipment. That breadth is intentional — cross-industry problem-solving sharpens design thinking in ways that specialization alone never can. When you work with us, you get engineering intelligence drawn from every corner of the product world.

What “Tallawah” mean? In Jamaican patois, “tallawah” means strong, capable, and resilient — formidable despite your size. It’s the quality of a thing that performs beyond what you’d expect from looking at it. We named our company after that quality because it’s exactly what we build into every product that leaves our studio — and it’s the quality we see in the founders and inventors we work with every day.