In less than two decades, Worksport Ltd. went from being a small-cap importer of pickup truck accessories to being one of the biggest names in tonneau (truck bed) covers. Founded by a teenager, the company’s story is one like no other. It exemplifies an entrepreneurial spirit that’s rarely seen at such a young age, but it also highlights a strategic approach to manufacturing that has allowed the company to navigate complex market conditions.
When Steven Rossi, founder of Worksport, established the company, he was only 18 years old, but despite his young age, he was determined to turn the truck accessories market upside down. Part automotive enthusiast, part entrepreneur, he focused his start in the business world on automobile recycling and used car parts. Ambitious and full of ideas, he soon shifted that focus to truck bed covers that could be functional, sustainable and high-tech.
According to his chief operations officer, Chris Bernaudo, “Steven has always been a truck guy and always wanted to design products with the truck owner in mind.”
After developing a series of hard-folding tonneau covers for light-duty trucks, Rossi pushed his ideas further into more advanced, energy-focused solutions, which he debuted in 2015 to industry skepticism. Undeterred, these initial offerings served as the foundation for Worksport’s broad catalog, which features the popular Solis product, a hard-folding solar-integrated truck bed cover that essentially turns a pickup truck into a mobile, off-the-grid power source.
Unsurprisingly, the Solis flew off the shelves, ultimately proving the naysayers wrong. Today, it’s just one offering in a broad line of innovative products produced by the company.
Welcome home
In the 15 years since founding Worksport, the company has become a household name for both hard- and soft-folding tonneau covers for the biggest truck brands on the road. It’s also becoming a go-to supplier of heavy-duty covers for commercial and fleet vehicles.
Along the way, Rossi has told his story at conferences, on well-known podcasts and webinar series, and on television, inspiring other entrepreneurs and startups to flourish in their business pursuits. During these speaking engagements, he’s talked about the lessons he learned early in his career and how they were later applied toward future successes. One of the biggest examples of that can be seen in the company’s reshoring efforts.
Originally, Worksport’s manufacturing took place in China, but like so many other companies, supply chain issues during the pandemic rattled the team’s confidence in their overseas strategy. After a successful IPO on the Nasdaq exchange and a lucrative round of funding, the company purchased a 222,000-sq.-ft. factory in West Seneca, N.Y., just outside of Buffalo, to make its products stateside.
“The idea was to design something with our customers in mind that could be made in the United States at a price that would work for them,” Bernaudo says. “One of the biggest things we had to keep in mind was the aluminum panel. We produce ours with thicker aluminum so that it doesn’t dent as quickly as some competitors’ models. Our customers want a product that will look good and function for as long as possible.
“That’s why it was so important for us to come up with ways to optimize its design and produce it here with the quality customers expect – all without asking for too much money from them in return,” he adds.
The process of bringing manufacturing in-house was a major move for Worksport – one that required deep analysis, but also one that wasn’t solely motivated by cost savings. In the end, the successful relocation of production allows the company to better control quality, speed to market and its vision while also being able to claim Made in the USA status and secure ISO 9001 certification, both of which have been incredibly good for business.
Consistency, quality
Of course, bringing manufacturing back is easier said than done, especially when skilled labor is scarce and input costs, such as aluminum and other metals, are high. But the team at Worksport understood the assignment and to establish their more than 200,000 sq. ft. of production space, they invested in highly automated manufacturing systems, including a PSBB line from Prima Power.
To transform the West Seneca facility from a former beer distribution center into a high-tech manufacturing facility, Worksport invested in a “Ferrari level” automated production line, as Bernaudo refers to the company’s PSBB line. The PSBB line, which stands for punching, shearing, buffering and bending, is a fully automated flexible manufacturing system that turns raw sheet metal into the finished, bent components the company needs for its products. And it does it all without any manual intervention.
“When the onshoring conversation started, we immediately knew that we wanted to automate as much as possible,” Bernaudo says. “And that idea is at the foundation of almost everything we do at Worksport. We don’t say we want to automate because we don’t want people; we want to automate so that we can remove people mistakes. When you have too many people touching something, there’s always the chance of making a mistake.
“We wanted to include automation into our operation because we wanted to crank out a product that would be the same every single time,” he adds.
So Bernaudo and team went on the hunt for equipment and eventually landed on the PSBB line, which now serves as the backbone of the factory. Fully automated, it accomplishes the consistency and quality Worksport was looking for. It can also handle the high number of product variations the company offers its customers. Because the main product lines must be custom-fit to a truck’s specific year, make, model and bed length, the company’s SKU count reaches into the hundreds.
To accommodate the company’s build-to-order business model, the PSBB line sets the pace for the entire factory. With virtually zero time required to retool or manually set up a new product run, the system automatically switches between different part designs thanks to its intuitive software. The system is also servo-electric and robotic, which means it can run unattended overnight, keeping output high and material scrap low.
At its essence, the PSBB line is a fully integrated manufacturing system and the epitome of the “smart factory” concept. It can handle high-mix, variable-volume production with the efficiency of a mass production line, which allows Worksport to scale production for the major truck brands while maintaining the quality control necessary for its Made in the USA branding.
Spotlight on efficiency
All in, establishing the factory took Rossi, Bernaudo and the rest of the team a little more than a year from purchase to up and running. The initial goal for the factory was to produce two of the company’s main products.
“For those two products, we had to set up all of the new machines, establish the infrastructure for the assembly lines and build a workforce,” Bernaudo says. “We also had to build an operational infrastructure, and we did it all between the fall of 2023 and the fall of 2024. That’s when we really started cranking out products.”
Relatively speaking, the PSBB line and the entire factory, for that matter, are new. But, in short order, the company’s shift to domestic manufacturing rose revenues from a pre-IPO high of $1.93 million in 2019 to a record $16.2 million in 2025. Truly, this huge spike in revenue puts a spotlight on the PSBB line. It also puts Rossi back in the spotlight, as far as Bernaudo is concerned.
“It sounds cliché, but Steven is a visionary,” he says. “He knew what we needed and could see the future potential in the equipment. Right now, we’re using our Ferrari to get a jug of milk, but it’s exciting to think about what we’re going to do with it down the road. For now, it’s running nonstop, both shifts.”
Understanding how the company started and how it’s evolved, Bernaudo’s excitement is justified; Worksport’s next chapter will undoubtedly set the company further apart from the competition. While the rest of the auto aftermarket will treat tonneau covers as nothing more than a “wear and tear” commodity, Worksport will distinguish itself as an innovator with new and exciting products that are made in America.
In doing so, the company will also lift up the entire manufacturing industry. With sophisticated equipment and advanced automation systems, companies like Worksport are removing the stigma the industry has carried for too long. Not only is a U.S. address viable for production, it also provides an exciting place to work.
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