Veteran Scholarship Recipient Gerald Headley
Gerald C. Headley III, USAF, Ret.
We’re happy to announce our second Craft Supplies USA Veteran Scholarship Recipient, Lt. Col. Gerald C. Headley III, US Air Force Ret.
Gerry served for 23 years in the United States Air Force, where he flew combat Search and Rescue helicopters, managed flight testing at the FAA Technical Center, and commanded the USAF Water Survival School.
Gerry was introduced to woodturning in 1999 and has been turning ever since. He has served as president of the Capital Area Woodturners club and currently donates his time to the Tavern Woodworkers Guild teaching and mentoring new woodturners. Gerry looks forward to taking a course at the Dale L. Nish School of Woodturning this upcoming Spring where he can improve his skills and then use that knowledge when teaching woodturning to future generations.
Interview
While he was here, Gerry sat down and spoke to us about his experience. Here is a transcript of his interview:
My name is Gerry Headley. I was a Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Air Force and I was born in Richmond, Virginia. I lived in Virginia for most of my life until I joined the Air Force and I got to see the world.
Well, initially, I got the opportunity to fly search and rescue helicopters and that was my love. I loved flying that. I flew helicopters for about 20 years of my career; I retired at 23 years. So I got to see Korea and a lot of the east coast and I worked with a lot of different agencies.
When I first got married, my wife gave me a class in wood carving and I was really interested in that. I loved the wood aspect of it, so during my career, every time I went somewhere I would pick up wood from the local areas and then bring it back with me and set it up to air dry. I figured that once I retired, I could do all of this wood carving. It got to be at one point that I was carrying a lot of wood and I had too much wood at one point. So when I was leaving Pensacola, I put an ad out to sell some of my wood. A gentleman came and bought some of it and he ended up turning it. Now, I hadn’t known woodturning before but he showed it to me and it was just so beautiful and it was a lot faster than wood carving. So that got me interested in woodturning and I’ve been doing it for 25 years.
The one thing that I enjoy most about woodturning is that you can start and finish a project in about an hour. You know, it’s fast, it’s fast paced. It’s almost an instant gratification, which is a lot different than wood carving or other woodworking; and I didn’t have to worry about right angles.
You can do a lot and get a lot of gratification in a short amount of time, which for military members, a lot of time, all they have is a small amount of time. There are a whole host of number of clubs, usually within an easy driving range of where they live. A lot of bases have MWR groups where they can go on base and do woodworking and maybe some woodturning. So there’s a lot of resources out there that [military members] can use.
Everywhere I’ve moved, I’ve found a woodturning club that I joined. One of the things that I found unique was their willingness and joy in sharing what they knew, what they learned. So it was wonderful to be able to come in, pick up techniques, ask questions, and always be welcome in whatever community I was in. So that has been great. In fact, at my shops I’ve always had at least two lathes so that I can invite someone in to come in and turn with me, it gives me a good excuse to go into the shop.
The Craft Supplies USA Veteran Scholarship was a great boon, you know, it got me to come to a class, that I might not have otherwise been able to afford or to enjoy so it was great gift. One of the big techniques that I wanted to learn was the use of the skew. The skew I’d always used as a negative rake scraper and hardly much else, so the [class] was great. One of the things I did in preparation for the class was watch his YouTube videos on detail work. I also looked at other videos from Alan Batty and others about using the skew. So I could tell his techniques that were different from other people’s techniques and it really broadened my vocabulary for using the skew amongst other tools.
I would say, apply! Give it a shot. What I tell everybody in woodturning is, it’s not the tools that cost you the most, it’s not the wood that costs you a lot, the most precious commodity you have is time. And so don’t worry about the other stuff, just use your time wisely. If you can break some time off for an opportunity like this, go for it. You won’t regret it.
Learn more about the scholarship and apply here:
Featured posts
