Our Team

Rebeccah Byer (on left)

Rebeccah is a glassblower, teacher, and social entrepreneur. She discovered glassblowing in college, and received her BFA in Crafts from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1996. Rebeccah has been a college professor, producer of award-winning documentary films, and glassblower in studios across the US. Most recently, she ran a 501c3 glassblowing studio for young adults in Winston-Salem, NC. Rebeccah has focused her professional work on the connection between the arts and entrepreneurship as a way to build social equity. She is originally from the Chicago area and has lived in North Carolina since 2006. Rebeccah brings over 28 years of glassblowing, sustainability, and social enterprise experience to her role as Co-Founder and Director of R&D and Production at Guild Glass.

Michelle Portman (on right)

Michelle is an expert in historic preservation, with 25 years of experience in the architectural field. She received her 5-year professional degree in Architecture from the University of Oklahoma, and attended Columbia University’s 2-year Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. Michelle worked at architectural firms in Oklahoma and New York City before moving south in 1996. In North Carolina she worked for a boutique historic preservation firm as a project manager, then a larger design firm as a senior project manager and historic preservation specialist. Michelle has managed award-winning restoration projects across the Southeast including churches, train stations, city halls, and county courthouses. She brings her passion for sustainability and practical solutions, and her entrepreneurial and business acumen, to Guild Glass as Co-Founder and Director of Design and Marketing.

Minority & Women-Owned Business Enterprise (MWBE)

Guild Glass is woman-owned and operated business. We will be registered as a WBE with the State of North Carolina. As such, we will qualify as a woman-owned contractor when calculating MWBE project participation.

Our Start

Rebeccah and Michelle met at Rebeccah’s last venture, a non-profit glassblowing studio with a mission to teach glassblowing to young adults. Michelle and her daughters took a few classes and asked a lot of questions. Michelle’s eco-awareness had been growing under the encouragement of her teenage daughters, and she knew that Rebeccah used 100% recycled glass at her studio. Realizing that they shared many interests and views, Rebeccah and Michelle became friends. When Rebeccah closed her six-year-old studio due to the Covid pandemic, she and Michelle started talking about larger applications for recycled glass and ways to employ more artisans. Guild Glass was born from these conversations.