On the day after graduating from trade school, I started a boat building business in my uncle's garage. It was a lucrative business during the summer, but after starving all winter it soon became apparent that the boat building business was not for me. Having a background in woodworking, and a single stall garage it soon became clear to me what I would do.

On time payments I purchased a Sears & Roebuck table saw and started to manufacture cabinet doors, book shelves and other wooden furniture. My business increased by word of mouth and soon it was obvious that I would have to expand. Since adding on an addition to the garage was impossible, I moved into the basement of an old six-story mill building and once again began manufacturing pine dining room furniture. With a fine reputation for quality and service the company steadily grew from the basement to an additional four stories in that six story building.

In 1977, the company purchased a mill building in Amesbury, MA which had 125,000 square feet of working space. A great opportunity soon presented itself. Nathan Hale Furniture, a larger company with bigger and better opportunities on the horizon, not only for myself but for my employees and customers as well, made me an offer I couldn't refuse....The company then became Nathan Hale Furniture, having two plants, one in Amesbury, Mass., the other in Pennsylvania.

As president of the company, I continued to participate in the daily operation of the plants. Nathan Hale eventually grew to the point where a business decision was made in 1988 to sell the company to a group of investors. The new owners asked me to stay on with them, which I did. In 1992, however, they decided to move on and asked me to close the plant and send the employees home. The plant was closed on December, 31, 1992 and I went home.

My former sales reps and customers were persistent and called on me at home. The sales reps asked what it would take for me to commit to manufacturing again. I told them, "orders, and a lot of them." Their response was, "If you'll commit, we'll get the orders." This time I had moved up in the world to a three-stall garage. Early in January of 1993 I called a few of my old employees together and we decided to go at it again. Thinking that it quite possibly would be the end of another woodworking career, our team put together some furniture samples and waited....You can imagine our shock and surprise when the sales reps wrote more orders at the furniture show than we ever thought possible.

With the firm commitment of loyal customers and sales reps, Chatham Furniture was born in June of 1993. We leased an old mill building with 16,000 square feet of space and quickly grew out of that in just three years of operation. From there, we purchased the building we occupy today in Amesbury, MA with 3-1/2 times more floor space. Because of the superb workmanship of our experienced craftsmen and the dedication of everyone involved in Chatham Furniture we are now approaching our 10th anniversary. We strive for quality, design excellence, service and value in our solid wood furniture...so that each of our customers will have furniture to pass down from generation to generation.