I have always enjoyed working with my hands. Fixing bikes, motorcycles, cars and houses were, and still is, always a significant part of me. However, there was a pivotal event in my childhood that stuck with me and influenced my future. When I was about 12 years old, I found a plywood boat abandoned, forgotten and jammed in the weeds in a field next to my great-grandpa’s cottage on Payne Lake, MI. My grandpa encouraged me to resurrect the 8-foot boat with some sealant, paint and polyurethane. I loved to fish, still do, and the possibility of owning my own boat was very exciting to me. So, each afternoon for a week I went about scraping, sealing, painting and putting polyurethane on the little rowboat. I recall the hull of the boat was painted bright yellow, because that was the color of the can of paint found in the shed. The inside was left an amber brown with polyurethane coating. I was so proud of that little craft and even caught a few fish from that boat. Long story short, that was my first real experience in working with wood. 

Fast forward to 1991 and I began my profession teaching and coaching sport in Ontario, Canada near Niagara Falls. My Canadian wife and I had our first child, Andre, and shortly after he was born, moved back to the United States. I then began coaching Track & Field as a profession and moved around the mid-west of the United States pursuing my dream of working with young men and women. For the next 29 years I enjoyed working with young adults while striving to be a positive person on their life journeys. Education is not a resource rich profession, so money was tight. My wife, Lorraine, and I always bought fixer-upper homes along the way because that was what we could afford. Buying fixer-upper houses was the reality of living paycheck to paycheck while raising four kids. That reality forced us to figure out how to repair and DIY homes that fit our growing and busy family. I believe it was because of the DIY lifestyle our tools, skill sets and tenacity continued to accumulate and grow. 

In October of 2016, my wife and I took another leap and bought yet another fixer-upper house on the Grand River where we currently live. On June 2, 2022, I lost my job as a Track & Field coach. That was an unexpected change and the shock I experienced developed into a significant shift in thinking. At 55 years old, I figured if I was going to work 70-80 hours per week, I was going to do it, fail or succeed, on my own terms. An entrepreneurial friend encouraged me to consider my assets to help direct my thoughts and decision on where to move with my life. Well, I had tools, experience, ability, a healthy thirst for knowledge and zest for new, novel and exciting things. Why not move toward something I have the ability to do by creating and making things that celebrate and highlight the beauty of creation. 

So, here I am, on the banks of the Grand River in Grand Rapids, MI, living on a prayer and a dream. I hope we can work together on a vision and a dream you may have and make it a reality. Let’s dream something up together.