My name is Jim and I was born in Buffalo, NY in 1947. At the age of 10, my family made the move to Southern California, where we stayed until my high school graduation in June of 1966. In the following September, I joined the Marine Corps and began my training for deployment. After finishing boot camp I was deployed to Vietnam where I served with the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Division for 12 and a half months. At the end of my tour I sustained a below-the-knee amputation on my left leg, but felt extremely fortunate to be able to return to my family in California once again! I was awarded 2 purple hearts, and medically retired from the Marine Corps in July of 1968.

In January of 1969, after returning from Vietnam, I married the most beautiful and compassionate girl in Southern California. After getting married we had two wonderful children and, during that time, I attended college and graduate school. In 1975 I finished my education at California State University Long Beach, earning a Master’s Degree in Art with a specialization in Ceramics. I began practicing at home, making pottery as a studio potter, while also teaching ceramics part-time in colleges nearby. Even though I loved what I was doing, I realized that with my growing family my current work wasn’t going to support us financially; so I enrolled in a machinist apprenticeship program in 1981 with Southern California Edison and worked as a machinist for the next 15 years.

While working as a machinist I happened to also bump into woodworking through my dad, and my love for it began to grow. My dad recruited my brother and I to help build houses with him, both a challenging but also fun task. The challenge was so fun because I was working with my dad, but equally trying because he had been a cabinet maker for years which made him a bit particular. He always ‘suggested’ that we use sharper pencils in order to make sure that the layout lines were not too wide, which to my dismay meant a lot of pencil sharpening. But learning the art and skills of woodworking through those experiences made me realize how much I liked woodworking and also helped me to learn from what I consider to be the world’s best mentor.

Several years later, after my dad passed away, I inherited all his wood tools and woodworking machines so I built a small woodshop in the basement of my house. My love for woodworking was rekindled. I got a contractors license and shortly afterward I started a small business where I made both cabinets and customer furniture. This worked well, until our daughter and son-in-law decided to move to Colorado with our grandkids. Being a very close family, we decided to make the move to Colorado about 10 years later. This was quite a task considering it required moving my whole woodworking shop with all the machines, tools, and special wood I had greedily acquired over the years. It was during this process that I quickly realized this love for unique woods had made me a more than slight ‘wood hoarder’.

I think this term though is more of a strength than an issue. Whenevere I see a beautiful piece of wood while walking through the lumber yard I feel the need to buy it, even though at the time I may have no idea what I even want to do with it. The bottom line is that I just simply love wood! Whenever I see unique pieces of wood I get this hopeful feeling that, someday in the future, those pieces will become something truly one of a kind and teriffic. But, until that time comes with such inspiration, I can only keep waiting and creating!