As most of you know, I am the manager of Woodturner's Resource and all the work that goes into making the site. Along with Phil Bock, and a few other volunteers, we have kept the site going for woodturners to enjoy for 18 months now.

I have been turning since January 2002. I started with a Harbor Freight lathe my parents bought me for Christmas, a $10 set of tools and a few 2" spindle blanks of maple.

In February of 2002, I attended my first club meeting at the Antelope Valley Woodturners Association (http://www.avwa.org)and made some really great friends. A few months later, I became the webmaster for the club and we started the website above. Brad Stave, the club president, took me under his wing and I got to spend an entire day in his shop using his Oneway 24" lathe to learn tool use and bowl and hollow form turning. Together, we made an urn for my family dog out of ash, which was a gift for my parents and a maple burl bowl. Since then, I have attended the meetings, one of which was a demo by Stuart Batty late in 2002. This opened my eyes even more to some interesting techniques and possibilities. In mid-2002, with a couple of AVWA members, I took part in a trade which got me my current lathe, a 1989 Garrett Wade 16" shortbed.

In the two years to come, I attended the AAW symposium in Pasadena and took in some more demonstrations by some of my favorite woodturners, J. Paul Fennell, Art Liestman, Andi Wolfe and Mark Hancock. It is such a different thing to watch experienced turners in person than to try and glean information from a book or video. Then in August of 2003, I was given the opportunity to demonstrate at the AWFS Fair in Anaheim, CA for General Lathes. This was a blast, turning for 4 days straight with free wood and a great lathe. I'm not sure if it was the constant turning for 8-9 hours a day for 4 days, but my turning skills took off in a new direction after that demo.

Stepping back a bit, I remember in early 2002, the club was playing with the idea of applying for an AAW Educational Opportunity Grant. Brad had asked for ideas on how to use the money to further woodturning. I threw out the idea of a resource website to include the standards, along with things that had not been done yet, like a world wide woodturning art gallery, featured artists and the like. The club voted unanimously to do it and Woodturners Resource was born. It took 3 design drafts and 6 months to get everything together and online. WR launched officially in October of 2002.

I want to thank my family, my friends in the AVWA, Woodturners Resource and World of Woodturners for making the journey a terrific one and hope the best is yet to come!