In my professional career, I was a finance guy (CFO) and had dabbled in woodworking
all my adult life. Started out building speaker boxes in my early 20’s. Once married I
extensively renovating my house and then moved to building furniture to fill it. While
walking through Lee Valley Tools in 2007, I saw a sign advertising a class to learn how
to turn a pen. I thought a wood turned pen was neat, so I signed up for the class. I’d
never even touched a lathe before, but I was hooked. After the class I went and bought
a small pen turning lathe and joined the local AAW chapter. A General benchtop Maxi-
Lathe was acquired shortly thereafter.
I was introduced to segmented woodturning in 2017, and attended the 2018 St Louis
Segmented Woodturning Symposium. What an eye opener! I talked Robin Costelle into
mentoring me and have been doing segmented woodturning ever since.
I retired in 2019 and bought a Vicmarc VL300 as a retirement present. We moved to a
new home with a garage large enough to park the cars and have room for a good sized
shop (empty the garage could hold 6 vehicles!). I now spend my days in the shop
working on mostly segmented projects, golfing and traveling. I am active in our local
AAW chapter, SAWS (Southern Alberta Woodworking Society), and Segmented
Woodturners. I’m happiest when in the shop or discussing, learning, and sharing
segmented woodturning techniques and knowledge. There is always something new
(or at least new to me) to learn or try. I usually have multiple projects being worked on
at the same time. I never am at a loss for something to do, it is more a question of
what’s on the list that I feel like working on now.
