Today we’d like to introduce you to Adam Melfa.
Hi Adam, so excited to have you on the platform. So, before we get into questions about your work life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I am a woodworker with over a decade experience, though I got my start a much younger age thanks to my mother who taught me the value of fixing things rather than replacing them. What started as simple repair and refurbishment turned into a fascination with construction and design. It wasn’t long before I was building my own furniture, and thrilled by the prospect of being able to see a design out in the world and build it on my own without instructions. But my story as it relates to Zenith WoodCraft & building Furniture full-time only came to fruition in the past 6 months. Prior to this venture, I was the Director of Student Outreach and Support at a local University. In short, if a student had a problem, whether it be personal, medical, financial, or mental health-related, I was the first person they talked to so they could get connected to resources and get support. The work was rewarding, and I was able to serve our most vulnerable populations, but as you can imagine, it was also incredibly demanding. Unfortunately, despite my warnings and concerns, the university was never able to staff the office properly and for the majority of my tenure, I serve a population of 20,000+ students single-handedly. As an advocated for mental health awareness, I have never been shy about my history with depression and the impact that this position had on my own well-being. After taking the position as far as it could without the immediate support of the University, I decided to leave my career in Higher Education and pursue a life with a greater focus on personal well-being.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road. In many ways, I recognize that I am incredibly fortunate. I had been very frugal with my income, and I had an additional skill set that I could leverage. At the very beginning, I wasn’t even sure if woodworking was something that I wish to pursue full-time. I gave myself 3 months to decide if this was a temporary distraction while I healed or if this was a path that I wanted to turn into a career. I am glad to say that at the end of those 3 months, I had established the foundations for a business, and despite working more than 40 hours a week to get things off the ground, I had never been happier.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a woodworker, and I specialize in furniture. Specifically, I have a passion for the intersection of natural and modern design. My favorite style of wood to work with is called “life edge,” where unlike your standard milled material, it retained the edge or outline of the tree. For me, there is nothing more stunning than taking the beautiful curves of a natural edge and juxtaposing them against the clean lines and sharp angles of modern legs.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
I am self-taught. I have a motto that I try to teach new woodworkers. “You cannot overstate the importance of making bad things.” Making bad things the first step to making kind of okay things, which eventually leads to good things, and if you keep at it, you will someday make great things. Most people do not start off making good things; it is just a matter of working at it until you accumulated knowledge grows. YouTube is an incredible resource once you get past the trending videos and clickbait. There is an incredible power to seeing step-by-step guides from folks who have already spent hundreds of hours making those “bad things.” You get to learn from their mistakes, and even if you make mistakes of your own, that’s okay because that is all part of the learning process.
Contact Info:
- Website: zenithwc.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zenith.woodcraft/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zenithwc
