Ron Kuhn, Matt Giossi, and Hank Gilpin

Matt Giossi and Ron Kuhn have their own business, Giossi and Kuhn Design, but got their start working for Hank Gilpin for more than a decade. They still do jobs for Hank these days, but out of their own space. Matt (at left in photo) came to Hank’s shop when he decided to make furniture his vocation, and luckily, Hank was looking for a young, excited fella, so he took him on. Ron met Matt a few years later, while working as a bartender and taking cabinetry classes, and soon he, too, joined the shop. Hank says he takes on assistants because they help his business succeed. Of Matt and Ron, he says, “It was a crap shoot—one was a hair stylist and the other a very good bartender, but they were good guys who wanted to be woodworkers. And the good guy part is the most important. Turns out that hair styling and bartending are good pro preps for the world I live in.”