Jim Gryte, #10353, has been elected as the Northwest Regional Trustee for IWCS
Jim Gryte has been interested in trees from a very early age. Growing up in northern California, his earliest memories of going to his grandparents’ house include riding through a magnificent Coast Redwood grove, and his first boyhood woodcarving was made out of redwood. In the summer after sixth grade, he helped to identify trees in a local forest on a project with his teacher to prepare a nature trail near his home.
To offset the stress of work in healthcare administration as a registered nurse, Jim has enjoyed many aspects of woodworking, particularly turning and carving. Wood purchases for projects invariably led to finding beautifully-figured wood and interesting, unusual species. Many years ago, when a friend asked about his “wood collection,” he realized that collecting was occurring without intention, structure, knowledge, or focus.
IWCS is a community of people interested in learning more about this infinitely-varied material. It’s Jim’s desire to serve IWCS and share his passion for wood by helping to build the community, to make IWCS information as widely accessible as possible, and to introduce woodworkers outside of the IWCS to perhaps overlooked species from which to create beautiful work.