I came to this profession by a circuitous route. After the customary amount of academic experience, I found myself in the equally stressful and compensated aeries of banking and finance. But a vacation in California became a life change. One box closed and another opened. I found a new job as an apprentice woodcrafter in the fall of 1982. That was at first the means to get through a winter in the mountains around Donner Pass. Years elapsed in the job beyond that initial season, until circumstances eventually led me to San Francisco ten years later. Lacking a better idea, I opened my own studio and commenced to run through successive periods of kids' furniture, lawn furniture, faux finish cases, and cafթ tables. All the while, I remembered my apprenticeship learning marquetry and inlay techniques.