Daniel Allen and Edward Ross

Best mates Daniel Allen and Edward Ross are two carpenters by trade who met on a Brisbane building site in 2014. After Dan tragically lost a close mate to suicide in 2015, the two tradies identified two glaring problems, one the tone of the mental health conversation was too serious and two, ordinary Australians don’t know where to go to first seek support.

In 2018, the boys launched TradeMutt – A social enterprise workwear company by tradies for tradies. Their funky workwear was designed to take a more fun, light hearted and colourful approach to normalising mental health conversations on a daily basis.

In June 2020, the pair launched TIACS – a free, early intervention mental health support service providing ongoing counseling services for the entire blue collar sector. To date, TIACS has supported over 20k individuals at a return to the Australian community of $3m+ in free services, receiving numerous national accolades.

In 2023 they were the QLD Australian of the Year Nominees.