By Rich Johnson

Author  Bio I am a native Californian born in Stockton and raised in Pacific Grove. My railroad world was in the background because I fell in love with Woodturning and Michelle. In '84 I married Michelle. We got to do craft fairs together for many years.

I am a native Californian born in Stockton and raised in Pacific Grove until '64. Then I joined the Navy and did the Viet Nam thing for 4 years as a Boilerman on a "Tin Can". After my discharge I went back home for a few years, then moved on... I even tried a couple marriages.

I worked for a company as a manufacturing and service manager in the LA area in the 70's. That company wanted to expand to some place in Northern CA called San Jose. That was not a decision for me. I moved to SJ and started the new company. After only a couple years things did not work out and they shut down.

I was hired by ROLM in 1980 as a Line Maintenance tech. Within a couple years I advanced into the engineering department. My new world was Manufacturing Engineering and Process Engineering, I had a ball.

My railroad world was in the background because I fell in love with Woodturning and Michelle. In '84 I married Michelle. We got to do craft fairs together for many years. Our booth had Woodturnings and Tole paintings. ROLM shut down manufacturing and I obtained a retirement package in '92. Now I was doing full time Woodturning. In 1999 we moved to a place where I could build a Woodturning School and continue on with the turning.

I became a distributor of turning tools and the west coast reseller for the STUBBY lathe. By 2007 I gave up the tools, and RETIRED...Grin. I built a large HO layout in the garage. The HO Railroad only lasted a couple years because we discovered "G" scale thanks to some friends. All the HO equipment and even the layout were sold off to help pay for the new bigger better more Railroad Stuff!

The current Railroad, the Brickyard is definitely interfering with my turning! I wannnnna work on the railroad! I have many projects that keep me quite busy and can't wait to do more. I think there is a H & G show coming up that I need to get ready for, so back to "turning"...for a while

Here are the two links to my websites

One for Woodturning

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