…and certainly a whole lot has happened in that time.  I don’t feel any older than the day I started.  Wiser?  Yes, thankfully.  The ups and downs of self-employment pretty well press that upon you.  But I won’t go into that any further.  I thought some of you may like to know a little bit of how I came to do what I do.
            I attended college at the University of Illinois, graduating in 1993.  I completed the Professional Pilot curriculum in the Institute of Aviation there, then finished out my schooling with a degree in Liberal Arts, where my emphasis was in geography and cartography.  I’ve always been technically-minded, and this all went together pretty well.  While I was in school, I also found that I really liked carpentry.  I had only built your basic 2x4, dorm-type of “furniture”, but the bug had bit.  Several years later my dad reminded me of something I told him on the phone one night when I was a junior: “If for some reason flying doesn’t work out, I think I’d like to be a carpenter.”  I had forgotten that, but apparently the seed that had somehow planted itself did not forget.  Flying didn’t work out – and neither did several other jobs.  Well…then it just kind of happened.
            After my daughter's crib as my first real piece of furniture, my first “practice job,” you might say, was re-facing my in-laws’ kitchen.  In natural red oak, it holds up well today, so I must have done something right there.  With that job, I was ready to jump forward, but had to hold the reigns a little longer.  I was able to start into it part-time, though, while I worked at another job.  Then came the fateful day of deliverance.  How’s that for drama?
            My wife had a coworker who was going to start building homes with his dad.  They had been roofers and siders for years, and were ready to branch out a bit into spec homes.  I met with them and was able to be in on their first home (and 15 to follow), providing their kitchens, bathrooms and fireplace surrounds.  Really, we knew I was going to be too busy to do anything else.  It was time.
            And that’s really it.  If you visit the Cabinetshop Project Gallery, you’ll see some of the things I have designed and constructed during my first 10 years in this profession.

Looking forward to the next ten…care to join me?