Awake was co-founded in late 2020 by Scott Gates, John Engelstad, Andrew Darr, and Maria Gates with an ambitious vision. After educating themselves on the deep issues surrounding mass incarceration and the soaring recidivism rates faced by formerly incarcerated individuals, their dream was to create a business focused on second chance employment for this vulnerable people group.
“We knew the ‘why’ of our business was rooted in a desire to create employment opportunities for a people group that is often overlooked and under-estimated. The ‘what’ and ‘how’ of that business ended up circling back to our decade plus of experience leading and growing a window and door business in Arizona,” says Scott Gates, CEO of Awake Window & Door Co. “We felt it would be incredible to show the market that some of the most vulnerable in our society are capable of building luxury window and door products that people love.”
The talented engineering team at Awake spent the past year designing and developing a full family of minimal frame window and door products that work well for the contemporary architectural market. Their product family includes thermally broken aluminum multi-slide doors, hinged doors, window walls, casements, awnings, and sliding patio doors. The design philosophy focused on sightline reduction and sightline consistency across products, glass size maximization, wind load and water management, and energy efficiency. The final results included door interlocks as narrow as ¾”, door heights up to 18’ tall, innovative self-draining sills, casements that can be built up to 108” tall, and a full product family of tested and certified products.
