Business

Our woodworking industry needs to get Cro-Magnonifide

By Steve Ehle

I was speaking with an old friend the other day about our respective perspectives on the future of manufacturing in this country – primarily as it relates to the trades. We generally agreed, but differed on our degree of optimism. His was low, mine was guardedly optimistic. 

My friend pulled himself up from a struggling family life, and worked hard and made a god life for himself and his family. I went to college and inhaled pepper gas at UW-Madison in the late sixties and early seventies and later entered semi-poverty with a degree in Radio-TV Journalism and minors in Anatomy by the Braille Method and Processed Hops and Barley Tasting.  

My friend’s read on the state of manufacturing and the trades in this country was we’re pretty much doomed and should look to other ways to make a living – like, selling deli meat at the local supermarket or rolling rich drunks as they’re pulling out of the local country club. (Point of honesty – he told me this at our local golf course and he is a retired millionaire who made his fortune in the metal fabrication industry.) 

My rich buddy all but gave up the farm on the overseas producers pretty much taking over our manufacturing markets, with a possible strong future inroad being made in the trade sector. I’ve never applied to the Jingoist philosophy of putting up blockades on our trade borders. Still, we need to take stock and realize we’re not manufacturing/design/marketing Neanderthals fighting for our lives with the Cro-Magnons (aka overseas importers).  

Just recently deceased, my father used to tell me that “cynicism is the lowest form of humor.” He told me that a lot, but not recently. Now, my wife has taken over that role. Reality is sometimes a hard pill to digest, but one reality is that the woodworking industry is still alive and pumping fiber-based blood in North America. Just look around. 

I’ve always been a player and not a cheerleader, but it’s very easy to talk and think ourselves into a bummer brain freeze about what is going on in our business lives and elsewhere. Sometimes we look too hard at statistics and the commentaries from those who allegedly have the pulse on what is going on in any portion of our lives, including the business part – woodworking not excluded. 

The International Woodworking Fair scheduled for Aug. 25-28 in Atlanta is a prime example. The latest word is the exhibitor list has increased by more than 200 and attendee interest is growing. Now, trade shows aren’t the only barometer for what is happening in any industry sector, but it’s just as good as any in this age of immediate analysis and reaction to anything that touches our lives. 

Trade show interest is about as immediate as any other measure we have. So let’s not listen the naysayers and cynics and get off the couch and start kicking some wood. It has to start somewhere. Let’s just not let it start with those outside of our own woodworking borders who have capitalized on our geographical prime-time market opportunities. 

Hope to see you in Atlanta and other positive places.