A Little About Calavera

Hi there, my name's Michael. My wife and I recently moved back home to South Carolina with our four excellent kids - Francel, Boozie, Handsome Boy and Roscoe. Took me 25 years to get back, but here we are, and it's just where I want to be. Just as important, this is just what I want to be doing. 

I grew up building anything and everything I could dream up. I worked construction through high school and college and along the way learned a little about designing and making furniture. I fell in love with making things... starting with nothing, cooking up an idea, then burning through materials until I made it to a finished piece. I have since destroyed a lot of the evidence. 

Since college, I sold nails and nail guns for Stanley-Bostitch, designed tablesaws and miter saws for Bosch, then landed what pretty much anyone in their right mind might consider their ultimate dream job - Vice President of Marketing, Product Management, Training and whatever else the Germans thought good to throw at me over at Festool USA. Not a bad gig, I ain't gonna lie. Over a pretty surreal 8 years, I like to think I had a hand in pushing the industry forward at least a little. 

But as so many of you reading this know, corporate's not all that. And damn if those Germans don't have a knack for being really German. So I decided to set my own course and build something for myself and my family. 

With a forty year old hand-me-down sewing machine from my mom, I taught myself to sew, learned the basics of leatherwork, and started to turn some more ideas into reality. As you surely know already, making things by hand and running a business out of your dining room isn't quite as glamorous as the corner office, but you can also figure that it can be a hell of a lot more satisfying where it counts. 

I am personally driven to make the best possible product I can, and as I'm sure my wife and friends would tell you, I pour everything I've got into everything I do. That said, it takes a team to run a small business, whether it's me and Belle running the machines, Marie assembling belts, or the kids packing boxes. And that's not even to mention the multitude of friends throughout the industry who continue to believe in and support my dream. I owe some serious thanks to a whole lot of people, let there be no doubt.

While I hope you like what we're doing here, some of that's going to come down to taste. One way or the other though, you can rest assured that we take no shortcuts and make no compromises. Our customers deserve the best and we aim to deliver. That's what this dream is all about.