I've been working with wood since childhood, and am largely self-taught. I grew up with solid maple dressers -dovetail jointed drawers and 'smooth as butter' maple drawer slides- and these have set the standard for me ever since.
My first paying cabinet jobs were in my mid-teens, when I would work in the family basement after school until late at night, striving for perfectly planed edges with a $10 Sears block plane. At 17, I began working craft shows around the Chicago area. I was subsequently recruited by a cabinet shop, where I spent 2 years heading up a production line of cabinets and doing occasional custom pieces.
At 20, I moved to Oregon and became a baker. During the ensuing decade, I grappled with issues of global deforestation and our disposable society, while keeping my hand in occasional wood projects.
In November of 1993, after realizing the extent to which woodworking feeds my soul, I launched MARK MEYER WOODWORKING. I did so with the commitment to strive for the highest quality I could attain, and the determination that I would not make 'throw-aways', but that the pieces I built would outlast my customers. I've grown to enjoy, most of all, the process of working with people to transform their ideas into pieces which fit their needs and please their spirits.