John Scott Wiggins

    I was raised in a small town of Anacortes Washington located in the Puget Sound. My parents instilled their hard work ethic in me from an early age.
    In high school my interests were Math, Drafting and Wood Shop. My favorite class was Auto Shop where I learned all the mechanical basics and welding. The teacher walked me through every step in rebuilding an engine for my Hot Rod as a class project.
    Out of high school I went into the painting trade where I did lots of interior and exterior residential painting. I worked at different companies doing Industrial coatings, pressure washing, sand blasting, scaffolding, mechanical man lifts, different paint sprayers, and more.
    I had a job painting Navy housing where every unit had numbered drop cloths and the exact amount of paper, plastic, tape and paint need for that unit. Efficiency was the key.
    Wanting to expand my skills, I worked doing insurance restoration construction fixing fire and water damage. I learned many aspects of the building process working and managing crews. I worked for a few big housing developers and I owned a small framing company during the Seattle building “boom”.
    I study audio recording and acoustics as a hobby and I've taken some electrical classed from Robert Munger who helped develop Carver Amplifiers.
    Some intensive projects I've done are build a high end off grid solar system and designed and built a private recording studio in Seattle. I've designed and built a custom production sawmill where I had to learn some mechanical engineering, metal machining and Hydraulics.
    Most of the skills I've learned the old school way by latching onto the best tradesmen in there field who are passionate about what they do. They spent many years perfecting their skills.
    These mentors taught me concrete and foundations, custom framing, finish carpentry, painting, hardwood floors, tile, kitchen cabinets, plumbing, and electronics. This is how skills were taught since the beginning.

Man is a Tool-using Animal
Weak in himself,
and of small stature,
he stands on a basis,
at most for the flattest-soled,
of some half-square foot,
insecurely enough;
has to straddle out his legs,
lest the very wind supplant him.
Feeblest of bipeds!
Three quintals are a crushing load for him;
the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag.
Nevertheless he can use Tools;
can devise Tools:
with these the granite mountain melts into light dust before him;
he kneads glowing iron,
as if it were soft paste;
seas are his smooth highway,
winds and fire his unwearying steeds.
Nowhere do you find him without Tools;
without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all

Thomas Carlyle 'Sartor Resartus' (1834) bk. 1, ch. 5