I first got interested in wood working as a child. My dad had me help build a pine coffee table one year for mother’s day. I was amazed that you could take pieces of wood lumber and make something I thought at the time could only be bought in a store. I was also amazed at the sketch my dad made up of the table and was sure there was no way we were going to pull it off. Coming up with an idea and building it became an obsession for me. Resources, time and other interests however, were at a premium growing up so sports, the outdoors and a plethora of other hobbies kept me busy. As an adult I joined the Army at the age of 17, went on to college to major in Anthropology and bounced around working as an Archaeology Technician for the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. Needless to say there wasn’t much time or permanent space dedicated for building projects.

In 2011, I found myself hospitalized for almost 6 months from a motorcycle accident. My dad and stepmother were living in Arizona and graciously took me in to recover. This is the time in my life where I found my “second wind” and excitement for designing and building. While recovering from my injuries, my stepmother told me about a lapidary club offering classes. In my wheel chair at the time and desperately needing something to keep my mind busy I agreed. Turns out I fell in love with lapidary work. I soaked in as much information as I could about the process and the steps to take a slab of essentially raw stone and transform it into beautiful jewelry pieces. My dad being a retired engineer helped me take on a few projects of building stone pistol and revolver grips for friends of his. It took some time figuring out how to keep the stone from cracking under recoil but we figured it out (or rather HE figured that part out with a Eureka moment!). We were sketching out ideas and took a lot of trial and error but for me that was the fun part! Every failure brought us a step closer to success which is something I to this day get excited about. That process with him took me back to that first pine coffee table I helped with as a kid. I knew this is something I wanted to continue doing even if it was just a hobby.

I eventually recovered from my injuries and found a job in Grand Junction, CO. The problem was...lapidary equipment is extremely expensive! The solution was...I could use wood and woodworking equipment is readily available and much more affordable. Bonus is I love the wood working process! I began to amass more and more tools over time and was fortunate enough to buy a home with a large barn that was used as a hair salon business by the former owner that I turned into a woodworking shop.

This brings me to Woodsy! I currently have a full time job outside of Woodsy and my wife and I are expecting our first baby! Time and resources to spend on designing and crafting will be at a premium however, with the loving support of my wife and pushing forward with what I love doing will keep me in the shop making hand made wooden pieces. The name Woodsy has an interesting story to it. I adopted a white boxer mix dog from a shelter years ago. His coat is super white and as previously noted I love woodworking so I named him “Hollywood”. Not after the name sake found in California but after the whitest wood found in North America the Holly tree. In fact, the white keys found on pianos used to be made from Holly wood. His nick name is Woodsy and given the fact that we make predominately wood products we felt it was a perfect fit.