I was born and raised in Maine and have spent my life working with my hands. Building Shaker boxes came as a natural progression from my childhood, which I spent working with my parents and brother building houses. In earlier years we would live in the lower levels of the home while building the top levels around us, selling the home and moving on to the next when that one was completed. When my brother joined the Navy, my parents transitioned to buying and selling antiques as their parents did before them. Most teenagers would find this experience intolerably dull, but I loved hunting for quality pieces at auctions and yard sales and developed an appreciation for the quality of hand-made items. I left for a few years to complete my military service and was recalled for Operation Desert Storm, but I returned to the family business as soon as I could. By then, it was becoming difficult to find antiques in good condition, so my parents started making Shaker style furniture to sell alongside the antiques in their shop. I helped them build the furniture for a couple of years after returning home, and then in 1993, I learned to make Shaker boxes at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village.
I began making the boxes to sell alongside my parents’ furniture, but it wasn’t long before I was focusing on them exclusively. Today, my workshop is attached to my home on 20 acres of land on a dirt road in Embden, Maine. I take pride in crafting every inch of my products and branding them with my family’s name.