I started woodworking in 1990 at a time when I was approaching retirement from my surgical practice. In the early days of this undertaking I was involved in furniture construction and repair. In 2000 I retired. My neighbor had started carving and in 2009 I started working with Norman Weiss on decoy carving and painting.

In 2014 I did a relief carving of a bald eagle which was patterned after a photograph of the migrating eagles at the lake where my wife and I live (Lake Manawa State Park in Councilo Bluffs, Iowa).

This carving was a Blue Ribbon winner at the Iowa State Fair. After this experience, I spent over 2 months planning the carving of a Bald Eagle with its wings spread and holding a fish in its claws. This was followed by 14 months of carving and painting the piece. The carving is made of Tupalo and Walnut in 7 pieces. The actual carving involved doing the tailfeathers 3 times before I was satisfied. The fish had to be carved and painted 2 times since my dog chewed up the finished piece (much to my wife's amusement). When it was finished, I had planned to enter it in the world show in Maryland but was not able to accomplish this because of the problems of packing such a fragile piece.

The eagle was made with 4 pieces of tupalo for the bird proper. The base is made of walnut and includes a tupalo "rock" and a tupalo salmon