“After I graduated college, strangely, that’s when I wanted to choose a career path. You’re supposed to choose it BEFORE you go to college, right?,” says Tyler Morris in amusement when talking about how he came to be a professional woodworker.

“It all began when I had a summer job working for the Forest Service, and they had a little woodshop in the basement,” he says. Tyler was 22-years-old and working on his degree in Wood Science at Colorado State. The job required him to live at a remote post in the Colorado mountains, and he had plenty of free-time at night and on weekends.

“I began messing around in that basement woodshop and started to enjoy it,” says Tyler. After that, his relationship with wood began to change.

After graduation he decided he wanted to pursue woodworking as a profession. While Tyler didn’t learn anything about woodworking in his wood science classes, he was schooled in the anatomy of wood and identifying different woods. 

Once he made his career decision, Tyler soon began working for a woodworking company. “I really took that job seriously. I worked really hard at it, and I became like the right-hand man rather quickly,” he says. He received most of his training in woodworking on the job, plus learned a lot on his own.

“After a couple of years working there, I decided I could do this on my own,” says Tyler. He eased into business slowly in the summer of 1997, making custom pieces for friends and family, while also doing carpentry work for a local builder.  Tyler’s custom woodworking business began to grow, and he credits Sears Trostel in helping the business make the leap forward. “I wouldn’t be in business if it wasn’t for Sears Trostel,” Tyler says. “Back then I was getting a lot of jobs through Sears Trostel.”  Tyler had established a relationship at ST over the years, and had proven himself a reliable resource for referring ST customers who were wanting custom pieces. Today, you’ll still run into Tyler at the Riverside location, hand-picking his hardwoods and plywoods — but no longer for custom projects.
In 1998, Tyler hired his own right-hand man, Steve Wright, and they’ve grown the business from a custom woodworking business, into a primarily production-work shop. With the advent of e-commerce, in 2002 TylerMorrisWoodworking.com went online, selling their signature corbels, recipe boxes and trays — and started serving the needs of many, rather than a few. Today you’ll also find TMW wares on Etsy.com and Amazon.com.
>> Check-out the Tyler Morris Woodworking Etsy shop

>> Find TMW products on Amazon

Soon after going online, Tyler’s first corporate client came on-board. Rhinebeck Animal Hospital, in Tyler’s hometown of Rhinebeck, NY, placed an order for custom Baltic birch wood urns to hold the ashes of cremated pets. The animal hospital continues to order the urns today, and TMW has shipped 1000s of pieces to NY since 2003.
Now, approximately ten corporate clients keep the Tyler Morris Woodworking shop hopping with regular orders — from things like urns, to scraper sticks, to branded cutting boards engraved with both New Belgium Brewery and TMW logos. 

“They just keep coming back,” says Tyler. And he’s very happy with that.