Austin Waldo: Austin School of Furniture

February 2, 2023

Austin Waldo: Austin School of Furniture

“I want to get more into woodworking, so as soon as I get to Austin, I’m going to look up a woodworking club and see what they’re all about. And found a club that’s no longer around and went to the club meeting, which was pretty terrible. As a furniture maker, I was bored.

I want to meet more woodworkers and be much more social around it. So, I took some classes at the community college, met some great folks there, and we started brainstorming, what do we like to do? Well, we like good craft beer, and we like woodworking, so let’s start a club that’s about that.”

-Austin Waldo

Welcome to a brand-new episode of the Woodpreneur Podcast. Today, your host Steve Larosiliere is joined by Austin Waldo, the managing director of Austin School of Furniture. Austin started school when he went to a woodworking club, but he felt it could have been more thrilling and better. Because of it, he consequently made more friends and met more woodworkers. He enrolled in a few classes at the community college, where he met some wonderful people, and they got to work on concepts. The group decided to form a club after discovering a shared passion for woodworking, and the rest is history.

In this episode, we’ll learn how Austin was inspired to start a new school by a group of pals with a healthy carpentry passion and a background in marketing and technology. We’ll discover the school’s beginnings, successful reorientations to change, and future goals.

Austin also talks about the Texas Woodworking Festival, which will be held in Austin on August 26th and 27th of this year, celebrating everything woodworking!

Listen now and get the whole story!

“But we try to make the school fun and awesome, very young and more progressive on how we market classes and do different things.”

-Austin Waldo

Becoming a Qualified Instructor

A highly qualified instructor is essential in this day of high standards and expectations. An effective teacher is a crucial component of the educational system. Even though technology has taken chiefly over our lives, some parts of it will never be able to replace face-to-face contact with people. Austin works to prepare newcomers by providing them with an instructor to guide them through the initial step, enabling them to go on to become prosperous furniture makers in the future. Well-qualified instructors can provide a range of different learning strategies and methods for their students. That may involve engaging students in hands-on learning activities, letting them apply their learning, or asking them to do it independently.

“We try to, even at a complete beginner level, have an instructor that is at a very, very high level with a shop that’s run well and assistance to help where you can run those classes to get people through that first step and then eventually may come to a furniture maker down the road.”

-Austin Waldo

Want to get in touch with Austin Waldo?

Contact him through:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/austinschooloffurniture/