In case you haven’t heard, Ed Gladney will be stepping down as the coordinator for the club’s Design in Wood competition at the San Diego County Fair.
Ed served eight years as coordinator and his retirement ends 26 years of his involvement in DIW.
He’s a 40-year-plus member of the Fine Woodworkers—one of the original members who signed up with DIW founder, Lynn Rybarczyk. “I remember Lynn set up a card table in front of Brian Murphy’s store, The Cutting Edge on Mira Mesa Blvd. and started taking names.”
He attended the first meeting which was held at the elementary school where Lynn was a teacher. “I remember sitting in those little chairs. I was still working and doing a lot of traveling at the time so my participation was sporadic. I remember being somewhat intimidated by all the professional woodworkers in the room. I do remember Tage Frid at one of our meetings. I still have his autographed book.”
Later, he served six straight years as President of the association. “When I stepped down the board decided to adopt a five-year consecutive term limit to holding the office.”
Ed is a long-time resident of San Diego. “The Navy sent me to NAS Miramar in 1966. I decided to stay after a four year stint in the Navy.” Returning to civilian life, he attended Mesa College before transferring to UC San Diego.
He majored in Applied Physics and Information Science and Applied Mechanics and Engineering Science, and with this degree took a job at the now-defunct Control Data Corp.
Ed says he’s always had an interest in woodworking, in part inspired by his father and uncles who were also hobbyist woodworkers.
But what really motivated him was the price of furniture as a husband and the father of two young children.
“After I got married, we needed furniture. That was the real reason I got in woodworking,” he recalls with a smile. “I couldn’t afford what was sold in the stores. So, I built it myself. One of my first major jobs was to rebuild our kitchen in our house in Clairemont.”
“I took quite a lot of classes at Palomar in the 1990’s and learned that I didn’t know as much as I thought.” He’s become a very accomplished woodworker since those early days.
Ed says what he has enjoyed in his participation over the years in the DIW competition is “the people, and learning about how they approach woodworking differently. The wide variety and innovation in the entries each year is amazing. The pieces they enter into the show are really spectacular. Also, I enjoy seeing the expressions of the people viewing the exhibit. They are always amazed and it shows. That includes our terrific staff as well. I couldn’t do it without them. We do our best to display the entries in the fairest and best way possible.”
When Ed interviewed for the job in 2015, one of the things he was asked was “What will you change in Design In Wood?” “I answered, nothing. It is already the best, why change it?”
“However, I did make a change in 2018 to add a separate class for chairs. I was getting so many chair entries I thought it deserved a separate class. It is a separate skill, and we have members who specialize only in chairs,” he says. “They can do other work, but they like to build chairs.”
When asked, he’ll tell you that he doesn’t have a favorite competition class. “You know, I love it all.”
But he admits he does have a penchant for traditional furniture entered into the show.
He’s also gotten a few surprises. One year, a would-be entrant wanted to enter a large boat. “The guy pulled up with a full sized 14’ wooden boat complete with engine. ‘How am I going to take that?’ I refused the entry.”
He’s also gotten a few surprises. One year, a would-be entrant wanted to enter a large boat. “The guy pulled up with a full sized 14’ wooden boat complete with engine. ‘How am I going to take that?’ I refused the entry.”
Ed says one of his biggest challenges is finding judges qualified to judge the 26 entry classes. He likes to use what he calls expert volunteers. He looks for experts in their particular field.
This year, for example, he asked long-time Palomar veneer and marquetry instructor Bob Jacobson to judge marquetry entries.
When he assumed the leadership role for DIW, Ed followed long-time coordinator Bob Stevenson–a period furniture master craftsman who’s best described as a woodworker’s woodworker.
In his first years as a volunteer, Ed worked closely with Bob. He remembers one of the first tasks was to build the specially designed cabinets used to display the smaller piece entered into DIW, such as the lathe-turned bowls and marquetry boxes.
He remembers going to an empty warehouse at the Marine Terminal on the bayfront, where Bob directed other volunteers in constructing the booths that house the demonstrators from the five guilds. This is something that sets Design In Wood apart from other woodworking exhibitions, our live demonstrators showing the different skills in woodworking.
Ed is proud of the show, and the professional pieces that it attracts.
“Woodworkers put their work in front of one million visitors who attend the fair each year. Many come back to the fair each year just to see the Design In Wood exhibit.” he says.
Before he was caught up in his responsibilities of running the annual DIW exhibition, he liked to do professional-level furniture repair. He also loved to make children’s chairs based on the design of the oak chairs made in the Chair Shop that operates as part of the SDFWA exhibit at the fair.
He hopes to get back to that aspect of woodworking once he can spend more time in his shop.
“It’s been a good run,” he says of his involvement in Design in Wood. “And it’s been fun.”
Written by Columnist Tom York, Photos by Joe Sobkowiak