OUR CREDENTIALS

We realize there is no reason why anyone out there should believe that we have the

knowledge etc. to be able to consult with anyone on the various areas of building a Log

Home, Conventional Home or Remodeling your present home unless we can give you a

background on what we have done with our lives and what we have tried to accomplish in

the fifty plus years of building.

From the time that I was a very small boy on a farm I wanted to build with wood. It did not matter what I was going to build, I just wanted to build.

I was probably about 6 years old when I begged to help the men that worked on the Dairy Farm, where my dad was a dairyman. They were going to build a new wood fence around one of the barn lots, and I so desperately wanted to help. I was and am, small in stature and that probably didn't help my quest. I was shooed away, and I am sure the men had a good laugh.

My older brother and I built our share of primitive model airplanes over the WW II years. Then I did do some childlike building until my chance to be a carpenter came when I was about fifteen. From ten years old to that time, I had mowed yards for friends of the family, harvested asparagus, and worked in a feed mill.

Friends create many things for a youngster when the interest is there, and I was so interested in becoming a carpenter. A family friend was a carpenter and worked for a builder not far away from our home. I got hired for $1.25 per hour and worked on Saturdays while school was in session and 6 days per week in the summer. I was taught how to frame houses, do interior and exterior trim, lay floor tile, wall tile, drywall, paint, hardwood floors, concrete work, yardwork and I watched heating, plumbing, and electrical contractors anytime I could get away with it. Lunch time was quite often taken by watching excavators dig basements and do layout in preperation for foundations.

I was eighteen and a graduating senior from high school in 1952. There was little hope of doing anything but being drafted into the Army and going to Korea to fight for our country, so, a lifelong friend and I joined the Navy on Commencement morning. Our mothers almost died from the thought. I was the first in my immediate family to be in the service.

The next four years were spent in the Naval Air force. Much of the time I attended advanced schools for electronics but also was attached to a squadron of Anti-Submarine Helicopters. Loved the flying, and I had seen a lot of the world that I had only dreamed of. I was an electronics technician and Airborne Sonar Operator.

Discharged from the Navy in 1956, I stayed home for three months building mom and dad a new chicken house and garage with a small shop.

I had been promised a job with the Builder I had worked for in high school when I got home. Became disenchanted with working for someone else and started my own contracting business as well as a Television and Radio repair shop.

At this time I was married and had a daughter, and my wife wanted me to stay in electronics. I went to work for Cook Electric Company, that had a repair branch close to our home. I repaired Aircraft Radios for most of a year until the union took over. I couldn't get involved with that, so, I returned to building and attended night school and correspondence schools to learn more about electronics, geometry and algebra.

Notice the fumbling for a niche? I knew all the time I had only one thing I wanted to do for a living, BUILD!! I got a contract to build a Dental Building locally and I never looked back. We built many homes all over the state of Ohio and even built one in Raleigh, NC back in 1981. Horse barns, restoration of barns, and homes that dated to the civil war. I became known as someone that would build or remodel anything. They were all challenges and my four kids get a little tired of seeing homes that we built or remodeled over the years, they humor me now that I have seven grandkids to show them to.

My thirst for knowledge about EVERYTHING has spurred me to do new things and try most anything that makes any sense, well most of the time. I have tried to instill this feeling in my three daughters and one son. I believe I have accomplished that for the most part. We can do anything we put our minds to, and we live in the one country in this world that allows that to happen.

My mother was a great teacher and help mate. Four brothers, a sister, and I learned many things from her and my father. Mom had a green thumb and it has been said I inherited it, sometimes I wonder. We have thousands of flowers in our landscape and raise many of them from seed. I tell my wife that I want to plant so many more things in the yard, and she just rolls her eyes.

There are several things in this life that stand out for me. Marriage to my lovely wife and best friend has to be at the top closely followed by the births of my children and their accomplishments along with the fabulous granchildren. Building of our Log Home has placed everything in prospective. This is ultimate living and thanks for the many hours worked and hard times endured. My wife and I also established a very successful manufacturing business, that of course, involves wood. We have built commercial cabinets and fixtures for some of the largest Fitness Centers in the USA and have had the fun of building the same for recreation centers far and wide. Signage of various unique designs has been incorporated into many of these jobs.

I have learned many things over the years and enjoyed most of them. I thoroughly enjoy being semi-retired and having the last daughter home with us. We don't ever want her to leave. Silly, of course, but she doesn't want to leave home either. Although, I have a strong feeling that she simply wants the house. HA!

Please don't hesitate to send an E-MAIL if you wish information or just wish to "talk" about your families and your work. We love to hear from the many folks from all over the world that contact us.