Dave Grulke

Dave Grulke is the Executive Director of the Cabinet Makers Association and owner of Big Dave's Service in suburban Milwaukee, WI. Dave has more than 20 years of experience in advertising sales and sales management in print, direct mail and broadcast media. During that time, he rehabbed dozens of residential properties and opened his residential general contracting business in 2002. He joined the CMA shortly after he launched his business and served on its Board of Directors.

Having learned site-built cabinetry and finish carpentry installations as college summer jobs over 30 years ago, he developed his business to specialize in turn-key custom kitchens, baths and home offices.

Eric Pfeiffer

Eric Pfeiffer is an award winning product designer. His philosophy: Simplicity and sustainability guides a process that creates useful and essential forms for the objects in our lives. It is this pure design philosophy, coupled with a casual west coast sensibility that results in timeless objects rooted in a deep understanding of usability and manufacturing.

Pfeiffer's products have attained worldwide distribution and currently sell in more than 350 of the finest stores in the US, Europe, and Japan. He also co-authored "Bent Ply: The Art of Plywood Furniture," the seminal book on the history and manufacturing of bent ply furniture.

In 2000 Pfeiffer merged his first company with Offi where he served as VP of Design, overseeing all product design and development for the award-wining firm. Throughout his career, Pfeiffer has developed product concepts for Design Within Reach, Target, Crate and Barrel, MOMA, Room & Board, OXO and CB2.

Today, Pfeiffer continues with his goal of creating essential objects. Working with a wide range companies his work is focused on the real needs of people and the market. "A beautiful solution is one that people use everyday, becoming essential to their daily life," he says. "And if we can create a product the lasts a lifetime and showcases its purity of form and function, even better."

William Sampson

Currently the editor of CabinetMaker+FDM magazine, William Sampson has a lengthy history in publishing, woodworking, and business. After spending some 20 years as a newspaper reporter, photographer and editor, he was tapped to take over as editor of Fine Woodworking magazine in 1992. Two years later Sampson founded WoodshopBusiness magazine. Targeted specifically at small shop professional woodworkers, the publication offered pragmatic information to help small shops thrive. In 1998, Sampson merged WoodshopBusiness in with CabinetMaker magazine and joined with five other stakeholders in founding Chartwell Communications Inc. CabinetMaker and its sister publication FDM were purchased by Watt Publishing Co. and eventually merged into the current single magazine in 2009, which was purchased by CCI Media LLC in 2011.

Sampson was awarded the Woodworkers Helping Others award in 2004, “recognizing his support of the woodworking industry and the students that represent its future.” He was also instrumental in the founding of the Cabinet Makers Association in 1998, serving as the organization’s first executive director.

Whitney Gainer & Ashley Turner

Whitney Gainer and Ashley Turner are two sisters that wear many hats! Whitney is a stay-at-home mother with 5 kids, and Ashley is a stay-at-home mother of 3. They started blogging when they both moved into new homes, and were challenged to decorate more space on a budget. They love scouring high and low for shanty items and transforming them into something chic, which led them to start their blog Shanty2Chic! They take their readers along on a journey as they transform their homes on a budget with DIY projects and How-To Tutorials. They are both aware of the virtues of quality PureBond plywood since they've taken the "PureBond Pledge" and use it for all their furniture projects that include plywood.

Kiersten Hathcock

Kiersten Hathcock is an ex-marketing executive turned self-taught furniture designer/builder. After graduating from Ohio University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications, she spent the first ten years in training/instructional design and marketing roles for technology, healthcare, and entertainment corporations.

Hathcock left a marketing career with A&E and The History Channel in 2003 to spend more time with her kids. While home, she spent time doing freelance marketing as well as nanny work to help make ends meet. After doing research and discovering only two companies sold modern style toy boxes, she set out fill a marketplace void. Hathcock created the brand elements and marketing strategy while teaching herself to build furniture. For three and a half years, she built everything in her four hundred square foot garage until December of 2010 when she partnered with L&J Woodworking, an Amish furniture manufacturer in Ohio, who now produces all of the designs.

Over the years, Mod Mom Furniture has not only been featured in magazines, TV shows, and modern design books but is being purchased by families, celebrities, and interior designers from around the globe. Hathcock is busy growing the business internationally, designing new lines, and speaking throughout the US on building businesses in this economy, utilizing social media to build a brand, and changing career paths.