Sponsor Spotlight: TR Woodworks

Aaron and Julie Callison are a husband and wife team that own and operate TRwoodworks. Aaron has been wood-working since high-school, where he met Julie! They've been together ever since. Over the years they've lived everywhere from Hawaii and North Carolina, to Montana, where they currently reside. Aaron served in the US Army, and they even drove 18-wheelers together. But he loves woodworking. He spent the last 4 years working two jobs to build his shop and pay for his tools, and now finally works for himself full-time. Julie handles the business side of things, and really enjoys it. In her spare time, you'll most likely find her on the back of a horse! The other member of team TRwoodworks is small, but very important. The mini-schnauzer mascot Jonesy. You can bet if you're in the shop, he's there too!



1. What inspires you to come up with new designs?

At the risk of sounding like suck ups, we actually get inspired by our customers! They will email us and ask for something, and we'll make it and say, what a great idea! And Aaron loves coming up with new designs. He'll sit there and sketch stuff out, discard a bunch, and then hit on something he likes. His new spice rack was like that. He actually combined two separate products we'd made previously into a totally new design!



2. How long have you been creating?

Aaron has been woodworking since high-school, but has been creating his whole life. He drew a lot as a kid, and also got into writing. He's had a few short stories published, and he's just finished a novel (that will hopefully be published!). Julie will tell you she's not creative, but that's not true! She's a great photographer.




3. Where do you do your work? Do you have a dedicated area of your home, or?

We actually converted our garage into a 700 square foot shop. That's where all the sawdust flies around (although Julie swears most of it ends up in the house!). We also have a small office in our home with our computer and other things that Julie uses to run the business side of things.



4. Tell us about a goal you have for your business

Our main goals are good customer service and quality products; to us there is nothing more important. We know that sounds cliché, but we don't mind! We really want people to enjoy shopping with us. Julie loves to mother hen people, so she loves doing the convo's. But we also hope to expand our business. That's one of our 2011 goals: advertise more, reach more people!



5. What is your favorite album?

Honestly, we have so many, it's hard to pick! We both love music. We are huge Metallica fans, and Master of Puppets is one of our favorites! We also love Aerosmith and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Greatest Hits. Sorry, that was more than one!!



6. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

We hope in 5 years things are just like they are now! We are so blessed with family, a lovely home in Montana, a successful business, and our awesome mascot: a mini-schnauzer named Jonesy! We hope to keep growing our business, so that maybe by 5 years from now we could hire a couple of people to help out. That way we'd make new friends and someone would have a new job. J



7. What is your favorite thing to do on a weekend?

Oh, how we love weekends!! Living in Montana makes weekends fun! Julie's favorite thing is riding horses. She barrel races. We both really like fly-fishing and hiking. In the winter, we really enjoy cross-country skiing (although we fall a LOT!). But when it's really cold and snowy, we'll cozy up with a good movie.



8. Tell us about a new skill you'd like to learn

We had a fun idea about learning new skills this year. We decided to skill swap. Aaron is going to learn some horseback riding from Julie, and Julie is going to learn some woodworking from Aaron. It should be fun! Hopefully all our body parts will be where they are supposed to be when we finish!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Leave a comment here and you could be randomly selected to get a 40% off coupon code for TR Woodworks!