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About Gary Salisbury

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About Gary Salisbury
Biography:
This is my story of where I was, where I am today, and where I am going:

I left college and the cornfields of Iowa in 1967 to volunteer and serve my country in the Vietnam War. I was discharged with honors after two tours of duty, two years later in San Diego, California. Not wanting to face another cold winter in Iowa, I decided to stay in San Diego and got a job as an engineer with NCR Corporation where my fellow engineers introduced me to woodworking. We would meet every Wednesday night at a local high school for woodworking classes. Discovering woodworking for me was like falling in love for the first time. Over the years, I went from student to teacher which I found very rewarding. Inevitably, my tool collection grew and grew along with my experience. Garages had served as my woodshops but space for my tools was always a problem since I had to share it with family, pets, and cars. I dreamt of a dedicated woodshop – the ultimate woodshop!

Then, after 40 years of service in the IT industry, I retired. I sold my house in the suburbs and bought a 4,000 square foot retirement home with panoramic lake & mountain views on nine acres in the equestrian community of Blossom Valley outside San Diego, California. The estate overlooks Hang-Glider Hill where hang-gliders and para-gliders fly daily. You can also see mountain climbers scaling El Capitan Mountain and fishermen trying to catch that elusive trout down below on Lake Jennings. And on a clear day you may even see the ocean from here. It is also abundant with wildlife. It is the perfect location for my plans.

I formed two retirement businesses; Paragon Woodworks and Paragon School of Fine Woodworking, with the goals to build and to teach. For the past four years, I have been doing nothing but dreaming and planning of building an ultimate woodshop for these two businesses where I can build and teach others to build woodworking projects. Now, that dream of having that ultimate woodshop is about to come true.

I hired an architect two years ago and took an entire year to come up with a design that would fit my multiple purposes. I submitted the plans to the county building department a year ago and just now got my building permits. (That task alone is worthy of an article.) Right now, I am now at the stage of finding a contractor who can build this 2,700 square foot behemoth structure to my demanding specifications. Hopefully that won’t take another year to do.

It will be a multi-purpose structure containing a 1,200 square foot four car garage (for my ultimate woodshop), an 800 square foot RV barn, an 700 square foot upstairs loft (that will serve as a multi-media classroom) complete with a wildlife observation deck, a kitchenette, and bathrooms (both upstairs & downstairs). It will feature a professionally installed under-ground dust collection system, a dedicated finish room, a dedicated triple sharpening station (with microscopic camera & viewing screen to examine tool edges), slot-panel walls to display & store hand tools, solar power, LED lighting, a clean air recirculation system, built-in compressed air, and many other new technology innovations. The interior will be of the quality of the finest homes with solid wood floors, crown molding, custom built cabinetry with butcher block counter tops, recessed lighting, a built-in sound system, and many more custom features. I have a collection of antique woodworking tools and over $50,000 worth of new power tools patiently sitting in storage; waiting for their new home.

I will be hosting a regular Saturday morning open-house where anyone can come over for a freshly brewed cup of Starbucks coffee, talk shop, view my extensive collection of woodworking videos, read from my extensive woodworking library, or work on any projects they like. I’m going all out for my final building project and I hope that it will be nothing less than spectacular!
Location:
Blossom Valley, Kalifornia
Interests:
Woodworking, fly fishing, building bamboo fly rods, magic, hot air ballooning, collecting, grilling, & chillin'.

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Last Activity
01-17-2021 2:05 PM
Join Date
06-18-2004