Local center a worldwide draw

By Staff
Melissa Cason
PHIL CAMBPELL – The town of Phil Campbell has a secret nestled just behind Northwest Shoals Community College.
Production and Finishing Specialist Bruce Jackson said the Alabama Center for Advanced Woodworking Technology is one of the best-kept secrets in the county.
"A lot of people outside of the wood industry don't know we are here," Jackson said.
The center's mission is to facilitate the growth and development of Alabama's secondary wood processing industries by providing training that will help build a modern manufacturing workplace; assist companies in becoming and remaining internationally competitive; and promoting environmentally sound processing technologies.
In order to complete this mission, the center brings in experts in the woodworking field to present classes and seminars to solve problems in the woodworking industry.
"Bruce and I don't know everything there is to know about wood so we bring in the experts to present classes and seminars," Alabama Center for Advanced Woodworking Technology Director Jimmy Glasgow said.
Visitors from across the globe have traveled to Phil Campbell in order to learn more in the woodworking field, and the reason is because the center is so unique.
"We are the only organization of its kind in the world," Jackson said. "No one does what we do."
Jackson said companies from all over send employees to learn how to make their wood products better and to solve problems with production.
"We tailor-make these seminars," he said.
"A company tells us the problem and we prepare a seminar for the specific problem then they send their employees here to learn how to overcome the problem or to make their product better."
Visitors from as far away as Sweden and Czechoslovakia came to the center last week for a seminar on wood finishing by expert instructors Joel Rago and Greg Williams.
"You can have the best quality furniture, but if it doesn't have a good finish, it's not going to sell," Rago said. "We teach companies how to apply a quality finish on their product so their product will sell."
In addition to presenting informative seminars to the woodworking industry, the center can produce videos that target a specific problem for a specific company.
"We have a new DVD project that will be coming out in a few weeks," Glasgow said. "Our DVDs are produced here at the center and are sent to be professionally pressed to ensure quality."
For more information on the Alabama Center for Advanced Woodworking Technology, call 331-6389 or visit www.acawt.org.