Young, Unafraid & Determined

A love story, condensed:

A guy walks into a bakery…many times. Months on, an employee finally asks, “Aren’t you that guy who makes chairs?” Christopher Schwarz hands them a copy of “The Stick Chair Book.” The bakery employee falls in – with stick chairs. So, Christopher invites the bakery employee, Kale Vogt, to build a chair with him in our shop after Kale is off work. They do, and fall deeply in love with all things woodworking – not just chairs.

Then serendipity steps in.

We needed a part-time person in the shop to help us record videos and the like, and a part-time person in the LAP warehouse. Enter Kale, our newest employee. (Apologies to the bakery for stealing them.) Kale is learning woodworking on the job, both by watching while shooting video, and one-on-one training from Chris (with a bit of help from Megan Fitzpatrick) in the shop. And Kale is a natural. So, we’re entering a more formal training scheme. Here, you’ll read the journals of both Kale and Chris as they embark on this training journey.