President
I joined the Timber Framers Guild in the late 1980s, just in time to participate in the Habitat for Humanity project in Pennsylvania. In the early ‘80s while studying in England and working in Germany, I came to deeply admire the ancient timber and stone structures that surrounded me. Trains were missed and classwork was neglected thanks to hours—and days—spent ogling barns and places of worship.
Upon graduating (University of Wisconsin 1984, Political Science, Public Administration, Policy Analysis), I pursued an advanced degree at night while working for a large commercial carpentry firm. After a few years an opportunity to work with a timber framer whose roots were in restoration carpentry presented itself and, fresh on the heels of my Habitat / TFG experience, my fate was sealed.
Over the years I’ve had the great fortune to wear lots of different hats within the timber framing universe. I’ve worked with companies that transitioned from hand-cut to automated operations with the advent of the Hundegger. I’ve worked with start-ups that are hyper-local, I’ve done historic restoration, and I’ve worked for myself in partnership with my wife Ruth, who is a very talented designer. In truth I’ve done as much general contracting as I have hands-on timber framing, and that balance has always felt right to me. Of late I’ve formed a partnership with a local design/build carpentry firm. We are doing fun and challenging stuff for good folks, including lots of traditional and contemporary timber work. While I’m sore most mornings, a fringe benefit is my stock in Motrin is soaring.
The consistent theme throughout my career has been to identify how timber fits in to the entire build program: what are the client’s goals; what is the budget; how do we interface and harmonize with other elements of the build while being sensitive the vernacular mores, local conditions, and materials that (should) drive the design and the build. These values were driven home most tangibly while traveling North America in a quasi-journeyman tour, from 2004 - 2007, with family in tow. I met and worked with many TFG members during that time, learned lots, made lifetime friends, did some really interesting work, and saw firsthand how good—and not so good—design and planning affect the success of a build.
Within the TFG I’ve participated in, instructed for, and managed a number of TFG projects. I've presented at conferences, and chaired the Projects committee for several years. I’m a lifetime member. I believe in the tremendous value of TFG projects as an educational tool; as a fundraising mechanism; and as a PR opportunity. I have seen first-hand how projects can play a part in fostering healthy communities- among the participants as well as within the host communities. These elements should be weighed individually and in aggregate when evaluating prospective TFG involvement.
Outside the TFG I’ve been active in my adopted home community of the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. I served on the board and was president of the 90 student independent school our boys attended. During that time I learned lots about not-for-profit board work and how it differs from work in the private sector. I’ve also served on our local Advisory Planning Commission, which advises government on zoning and development issues.
In my spare time I try to keep up with our sons Ansel and Rainer, who some of you may recall as participants in many kid’s workshops at conferences. I also spend a fair amount of time on the water racing sailboats or hiking with Ruth and our dog Copper.
Interim Vice President
The Timber Framers Guild has been an essential part of my life since I joined in 1997. Since then I have counted on the Guild for inspiration, camaraderie, and education. I have volunteered and instructed on Guild projects, attended every Western conference and one Eastern since ’97, and kept up on best practices through our excellent publications. As both an educational organization and trade organization, we are unique in the way we interact; the spirit of cooperation rather than competition defines us. In my experience, this is rare and speaks to the Guild’s mission and the integrity of its members.
The prospect of being one of the guiding hands in the Guild is one I will not take lightly. The things I can bring to the board are a passion for the craft, a drive to increase the magic of community building projects, and an increase in membership and financial viability.
Treasurer
I have been in construction for over two decades, working with my family business in Colorado and Oregon, and an active member of the Guild for more than a decade, attending as many Guild events as possible.
I bring to the Board my commitment to education and community. I continue to work with and volunteer for Girls Build, a non-profit dedicated to teaching girls trade-related skills at a young age. I'm looking forward to focusing on Community Build Projects, developing comprehensive safety protocols that encapsulate and teach best practices in the industry. As someone who has benefited from the Guild’s educational focus, I look forward to continuing that work for the next generation.
Clerk
Michael's career in restoration timber framing began while working at the Institute for Social Ecology with Seth Kelley. After a few years in the field, they founded Knobb Hill Joinery, focusing on preservation and restoration timber framing while occasionally designing and cutting new structures. He has spent a great deal of time documenting historic buildings, teaching classes, and demonstrating traditional timber framing methods. Now based in southeastern Pennsylvania, his company, Transom Historic Preservation Consulting, offers dendrochronology sampling services, historic documentation, and research. He is an active member of the Traditional Timber Frame Research Advisory Group and serves with Adam Miller as editor of Timber Framing, which keeps him engaged with members and their work in a meaningful way. Michael has served in the past as president of the board and clerk for the Guild, and says it is a privilege to serve once again.
My first introduction to timber frames was when I was a teenager whose summer jobs included putting up hay and straw (there is a difference) in the lofts of some massive local barns. I didn't really appreciate the work these structures were doing until later in life, probably after I had earned my engineering degree, by steadfastly holding those bales until they could be used, one by one, to bring the animals through what at that time were the snowy months of a Michigan winter. Even though those barn would likely not survive a modern engineering analysis they did their jobs year after year after year until they finally met their demise in the interest of urban sprawl, but I digress.
It was in about 1977 that old friend and college roommate Frank Baker suggested we investigate building timber frames as a means of putting food on the table and addressing that itch we both had to create things. After testing the theory over the next couple years by building Frank and Brenda's barn and then first house, neither of which, I suspect they would agree, were ever quite finished the die was cast and "Riverbend" was born.
I was a principal at Riverbend for about twelve years before selling my interest to the Bakers. During those early years we, like others, were trying to unearth the secrets of this ancient but nearly abandoned craft. The search for ideas and answers in those early years often put us in touch with others, mostly in the East, who had chosen this same journey. One in particular was old friend Ed Levin who we miss greatly. Little did we know it at the time but those frequent calls, conversations and sharing were really laying the ground work for the Guild. It was 1985 when conversations turned to critical mass and we met to formally create this great international community. That first gathering included many Canadians, like another hero of mine Doug Lukian also gone far too soon, who showed some jaw dropping timber creations.
After leaving Riverbend in 1992 I took a couple years for family time but I never strayed from the Guild making four trips to Russia for the projects that grew out of the gathering in Guelph that put us under the spell of Lance Lee and Atlantic Challenge. It was during this period that I first became a Guild board member.
At the Guild conference in Texas in 1993 it was discussed that the folks at Blue Ridge Timber Frame in Virginia might be needing a boost. A group was formed to see if help could come from concerned Guild members as the folks at Blue Ridge were highly regarded within the Guild. At the same time I was ready to get back to work and as one thing lead to another I packed the family and headed to Virginia to pick up the reins at Blue Ridge. With tremendous help from Blue Ridge co-founder Al Anderson we morphed Blue Ridge Timber Frame into Blue Ridge Timberwrights, due largely to the great team that has assembled, which continues to prosper and make a difference some 25 years later planting tremendous structures around the country and the globe that, in the words of one lady I met in a pavilion we did in Tennessee “ This is the reason we moved here. This changes lives!”
Like the many threads that are the Guild Al and his co-founder Steve Arthur had come to a Riverbend workshop back in the early 1980s to get their timber framing primer. Much in that vein and notwithstanding the magnificent structures we are all leaving as a legacy that will far outlast our "few bright hours" it is the journey; the people, the places, the friends in clients, suppliers, admirers and peers that are the reward of this chosen life path.
Thank you Guild!
I was first introduced to the extraordinary community that is the Guild back in April 1999. The previous year I happened upon a radio wave drying technology that appeared to be well suited to drying Douglas fir timbers. My market research consisted of purchasing Timber Homes Illustrated and cold calling every advertiser in it. The response was at best lukewarm until I got to Ben Brungraber, at the time with Bensonwood Homes. Being an engineer, Ben had run into the occasional issue with green timber and was keen to find a solution. He suggested he could come and visit me, as the Guild’s 1999 western conference was being held in Whistler, BC, only 45 minutes from where I was intending to set up the kiln. I now had a “stretch goal” – be up and running by April 1999. We succeeded and 21 years later, among other things, we’re still removing water from wood.
That first conference and introduction to the Guild was a game changer for me, my family, and my business. It was the first of 20+ conferences in a row I attended and those conferences took me all over North America. Through the Guild, I met friends, mentors, vendors, and suppliers. And as many of you know if you show the slightest interest in helping in any way you’ll soon be recruited. I was first elected to the board of the TF Business Council in 2004 and soon after was elected (perhaps appointed) treasurer, a position I held until the two organizations merged in 2014. For the last few years, I’ve been a member of the Guild’s Finance Committee.
I believe the purchase of Heartwood fundamentally changes the future of the Guild. Historically, the Guild has relied heavily on members and volunteers to drive the organization. This has created the unique community we have today; however, this reliance on volunteers can be limiting at times. The running of a school, managing of larger and more complex community projects, growing the ATP, and so on, will require more management, oversight, and guidance than ever before.
Julie Hildebrand grew up learning carpentry from her dad, working with him in the renovation world: from filling dumpsters to filling nail holes, and everything in between. Seeking cleaner work in the great outdoors, she registered in the Heritage Carpentry and Joinery program in Perth, Ontario. From the day she laid out her first post, she was hooked. After graduating, she sought out the Guild to find her fellow timber nerds. Find them she did! She loves the camaraderie that occurs at Community Building Projects and sees working together on large-scale, ambitious projects as a perfect way to get to know people.
Lately, Julie has been involved with a First Nations community in the Yukon, instructing a cabin-building workshop that builds skills in the community while also providing housing for people in the Nation. She enjoys traveling to special places like these with her work and connecting with people through building. She's hoping to continue to find and create workshops that spread the love of building and timber to people who might not otherwise discover it. When she's not working with wood, she enjoys white-water canoe trips, playing softball with her friends, and learning clawhammer tunes on her banjo.
The Guild is a special community that touches so many people. Julie is honored to serve on the board and put her energy and heart into this extraordinary organization.
I’m from the Berkshire region of western Massachusetts. I grew up in the world of construction—my father was an architect and a contractor, my mother a realtor, and I was surrounded by workers and tools, and houses needing work. I even grew up in a barn (no timbers though)!
I first learned about timber framing in 1999, and, as I tend to do, I threw myself into reading and learning as much as I could about this new/old way of building. I joined the TFG, and attended my first conference at Asilomar in 2001, where I was exposed to the incredible timber work of Japan.
While working as a carpenter, I bought an old Dutch-style timber frame house in Becket, MA. I was accepted to the Heartwood School apprenticeship in 2004, and participated in several of the TFG’s community projects over the next few years.
I now have a small company, Uncarved Block, that specializes in designing and building great spaces. I have five employees, and a big part of that responsibility is keeping them engaged and learning new skills. I continue to teach at the Heartwood School, and all of my employees attend workshops there. Many TFG members are excited about this new acquisition, and I too think there all sorts of great opportunities to expand Heartwood—around the country, at TFG projects, and to train the next generation of timber framers.
In 2011, I joined up with the new TFG apprenticeship program as a journeyman timber framer. This is a program that the Guild had been working on for a long time, and I am a big supporter. The program was paused for a bit while the TFG was in transition, but I’m excited to be a part of the new apprenticeship program.
I am a member of the TFG Companies Committee, which is devoted to serving the business members of the TFG. In the past few years, we have greatly expanded the number of company memberships, designed and offered several workshops around the country, and started multiple peer-to-peer business groups.
What can I bring to the TFG’s Board of Directors?
First, a real passion for timber framing—the craft (that sound of a sharp chisel paring through wood!), the design, the people, and putting it all together into building something bigger than we are individually.
Second, leadership experience as a business owner. That position sometimes requires making hard decisions.
Third, I have some ideas about connecting our collective timber framing knowledge and content (TF journal especially) with social media. I’d like to make the Guild THE source for timber framing information.
And lastly, it’s important to note that I am, and always have been, a big believer in the TFG. I truly believe that we can accomplish great things together.
While not a timber framer, Grigg has been in, around, and involved with the Guild for most of his life: he attended his first conference in 1996 and has missed very few since. As a machinist, he works with his hands and excels at solving problems but says he prefers materials “more dimensionally stable than wood.”
Grigg’s primary involvement with the timber framing community and the Guild has been community service projects and workshops, such as picnic shelters for parks, facilities for an organization supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, and outdoor classrooms for local schools. His family has been organizing, hosting, and participating in these educational timber frame efforts since 1997.
His “day job” includes making timber carts at his small business, Precise Solutions, for more than a decade. There, he enjoys helping solve problems with simple yet clever solutions. In his spare time, he enjoys learning about, working on, and using old mechanical stuff, from antique trucks (and road trips in them) to antique engines and machinery.
Grigg brings historical knowledge of the Guild; a thoughtful, logical, approach to problem-solving and planning; extensive experience in community building workshops where education, the participant’s experience, and community building are equally important.
It is such an honor for me to serve on the board and to help the Guild thrive and expand in a positive and productive way. Our Guild community has meant so much to me for more than two decades. The incredible sharing of knowledge, open-hearted collaboration, epic projects, events, and learning opportunities has been deeply enriching for me and has kept me hooked into this unique tribe. I served on the board of directors for the Guild for six years and still feel I have something to offer. I’ve served as both Vice President and Clerk for four years of those two terms.
For my day job, I’ve been serving our community making Heritage Natural Finishes products for timber frames and other woodwork. I’ve also recently taken over the Summer Beam Bookstore from our dear Charlotte Cooper to help keep our beloved bookstore coming to our gatherings. I want to continue to help foster Guild gatherings, create more workshop and training opportunities, help with event and conference planning, and find more projects for the Guild.
Dave began his career as a Mechanical Engineer working in the lumber industry in British Columbia. He left that to design fuel cell vehicles and fell in love with timber framing while hand-cutting a classic bent frame in his days off for a family cabin in the mountains of British Columbia. Just after the dotcom bubble, Dave gave up his office job and started Kettle River Timberworks. After 20 years of building up and down the remote BC coast, Dave recently sold Kettle River and is easing into retirement. In his spare time, he likes puttering at his summer cottage, mountain biking, hiking, and skiing. He’s looking forward to being more involved with the Timber Framers Guild which played such a key role in growing his business and has led to so many lifetime friendships.
My father introduced me to the possibilities of wood and construction as a kid. You could often find me at a homebuilding site as school let out raiding the waste piles for materials to haul off into the woods to build a fort or up a tree for a Swiss family Robinson house. In high school, I wasn’t allowed to take shop but a compromise was struck and I took a drafting class.
This sent me to Georgia Tech’s school of architecture and an eventful year in Paris. There were many tours of timbered roofs and the forest that was Notre Dame. Eventually, I was saved from a desk job in architecture and headed out west where I started building custom homes. Soon thereafter, I was given an opportunity by a young wide-eyed Steve Morrison to timber frame a house, and I never looked back. I have been a timber framer and Guild member since.
I love the craft of timber framing and plan to continue professionally as long as my body will last. My favorite aspects of this trade and the Guild are the people. All the incredible people I’ve met along the way, the opportunities offered, and the information and knowledge everyone so freely shares with one another. I love learning new things and we as a group and guild have plenty to offer. I would like an opportunity to give back to this by serving on the board.
I am passionate about education and projects. I stay involved in projects as much as life allows and have been fortunate to participate in a few as a volunteer, as an instructor, and was a project manager for the Oso Memorial Portals Community Building Workshop.
It is a goal of mine to work with and create more opportunities for both projects and education of people coming to the craft and already in it. I would love to make it easier for us all to find ways to involve timber framing into our local communities and schools to further the craft, thereby allowing others to experience our passion and new, beautiful timber frame spaces—and perhaps discover the passion for timber framing we all share.