The organization was started in 1996 at the Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan as a group of friends, experimenting with university surplus equipment. They grew over a few years into a small company, The Geek Group, leasing a building in Grand Rapids at 344 Ionia Ave SW. The Geek Group later moved to Kalamazoo and became a federally certified 501 non-profit company. In early 2010 the Kalamazoo County Treasurer seized the organization's headquarters, which was then located in Kalamazoo Township, Michigan a suburb of Kalamazoo, MI after the organization refused to pay property taxes. The back taxes amounted to over $100,000 The organization appealed; however, the appeal was denied. The organization moved back to Grand Rapids in December 2010 a facility situated on Leonard Street NW, dubbed The Leonard Street Labs. On January 2, 2014, a fire partially destroyed the organization's High Voltage Lab, and deposited soot all over the lab. A grub screw on a Tesla coil rotary spark gap was not tight enough, resulting allowing a tungstenelectrode to move out of its socket and strike one of the stationary electrodes. This resulted in a chain reaction with molten tungsten being flung from the spark gap unit, which caused a nearby capacitor array to catch fire and subsequently melt. From preliminary analysis, Project Gemini looks to be the originating cause, and completely destroyed, and Project Thumper was damaged. The fire was so hot it melted aluminum racks. Although no one had been hurt, the building was closed to the public once again for repairs. On December 21, 2018 numerous federal and local law enforcement entities executed a search warrant at the organization's headquarters in Grand Rapids, MI. The search warrant remains under seal by court order, however law enforcement told news reporters the search warrant is a part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Michigan State Police, IRS, Department of Homeland SecurityImmigration and Customs Enforcement and Grand Rapids Police were on scene. On December 31 the organization announced that it was closing down: and stated that the institute was a labor of love but it could not generate enough funding to pay its bills. On January 5, 2019, Chris Boden, the founder of the organization, was described as saying that the raid took place "because he was commercially trading in crypto-currency without the proper authorization", and that he believed he was facing prison. On Sunday January 6 he stated that on the advice of his lawyer he would make no further comment.
Sponsors
The organization was sponsored by many companies, the majority of them small businesses local to the organization, but also some larger companies such as Rustoleum. The Group supplemented this donation income by charging for some research and development services.
YouTube popularity
The organization ran a YouTube channel, serving as an extension of their digital education program. As of 2018, the channel had over 94,000 subscribers and 650 videos. In addition to technical tool training videos, the channel regularly produced several educational video series, including equipment autopsies, machine tutorials and 'Your Dinosaurs Are Wrong'—a series describing how toy dinosaur models are usually incorrect.
