I was first introduced to the field of knife making after meeting Jim Schmidt in 1978. While taking a High School vocational machine shop class in 1978 my instructor walked me down the hall to the auto body shop where Jim was a teacher.

Jim was a great mentor and friend who spent a lot of time and energy in teaching me an array of knife making techniques, from forging Damascus to folder mechanisms. Many of the lessons he shared with me continues in my work today, the two biggest are sole authorship and the use of natural materials. I continued my education at Oswego State University where, by chance, I met a student who was taking a jewelry making course. I signed up for the course the following semester and was shocked upon entering the studio.

There was an entire silver-smithing shop with a gold plating facility. The instructor was a graduate of the American school of Craftsmen at the Rochester Institute of Technology and amazing craftsmen in his own right. This was a real turning point in my knife making career. Design concepts as well as technical skill were now integrated into my work. This was when I started to make a break from my mentor and began to experiment with my own concepts to give my work a unique face.

It has been 32 years since I made my first knife and I strive to integrate new designs with each piece on my bench. My present output is about 18 knives per year with a backlog of about 2 years.

Knife making is not my only career. I hold 2 masters degrees in education and have been teaching computer networking and pre-engineering courses for the last 25 years at Albany high School in upstate NY.