Kanda and Nandi, from Rivendell Woodworks, recently attended the Cabinet Makers Association meetings, and San Francisco Regional Event held at the historic Western Dovetail drawer manufacturing plant on Mare Island in Vallejo. Most of the attending members were from the Bay Area, with a few coming from other regions in Northern California, but none traveled as far as Executive Director Dave Grulke, who flew in from Wisconsin to anchor the meeting. In addition to presenting an advertising seminar, he introduced the CMA’s Professional Certification Program.

Venders set up booths and demonstrated their latest and greatest wares, including prototypes. Blum, a premium supplier of Rivendell’s hinges and slides, was on hand to exhibit their next generation of merchandise.

“I’ve been working with Blum products for years,” said Nandi. “I consider myself a whiz with them, but even I learned a couple new tips and tricks!”

After presentations, attendees were treated to a gourmet lunch and full factory tour of Western Dovetail’s operations.

“I want to give props to Western Dovetail for hosting and catering such a nice event,” Nandi said. “It was fun to go on their shop tour. One really cool thing is that they have invented and built a number of their own tools. Rather than taking the route of looking outside for solutions, they looked internally and were able to solve some of their problems by innovating new machines. We’ve done some of that too. I think about how we at Rivendell built our CNC router. Seeing how creative they’ve been with their products is an inspiration for us to continue being creative with our own.”

When asked what had been the highlight of their visit, Kanda replied, “A very valuable aspect of the CMA is networking with other cabinet makers in small shops like ours. We have similar concerns and similar challenges, and can share what we’ve learned and what we know. It was nice to connect with everyone there.”

Nandi agreed, “It was most valuable reconnecting with the cabinet community in this area, talking with and getting reacquainted with everybody, hearing the same stories. They’re going through what we’re going through.”

It makes sense. The Cabinet Makers Association’s mission is to get woodworkers together and share their hard earned knowledge and experience to help one another. They believe that working together is the best way to improve individual companies as well as the industry as a whole. Rivendell believes that too, which is why we’ve been members of the CMA since 2005 and look forward to the benefits of continued membership.

“The CMA is a great organization,” said Nandi. “Every time we go to one of these meetings it reminds me that I want to get back on the forums and be active in the cabinet community. It’s a mutually beneficial, self-supporting club. Members definitely get out what they put in.”

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