Episode 133 - Rick and Jacob Thaler own Dendrotechnology in Corrales, New Mexico.

July 5, 2023 Eva Monheim

Rick Thaler

Rick Thaler was born and raised in Rochester New York. He tried going to college, but he didn’t stick with it. After looking for a job he was inspired by the Whole Earth Catalogue (WEC) and began to explore carpentry. His exploration of the carpentry trade led him to Corrales, New Mexico. It was in Corrales that he decided to resume his studies and attended the University of New Mexico but after one semester he dropped out again and started working in construction, building adobe houses, doing carpentry work, and making furniture. He was inspired by James Krenov, Sam Maloof, and Wharton Esherick, and deeply inspired by George Nakashima and his free-form but highly disciplined designs. Rick was also inspired by the solar renaissance in New Mexico and the idea of sustainable, low-waste building and living.

When Rick got married and his first child arrived he needed a reliable income and started working in a commercial wood shop. Eventually, he became a project manager and estimator, and after 10 years was able to buy the shop and ran the business on his own. Rick eventually grew the business into a $10 million-dollar-a-year business with 100 employees and did projects all over the southwest and around the country. Rick sold the business in 2019 and bought a portable sawmill to use as a hobby. After all of his carpentry work, he still thought of George Nakashima and his creations.

Rick’s son Jacob got interested in the sawmill and they started a business together making live edge slab planks. They wound up building a woodworking shop to go with the mill. Rick came full circle to his roots of making custom furniture. This time he had better equipment and an ideal place to work.

Live edge timber from local salvaged trees is now the backbone of their business. Rick and Jacob call it treeincarnation.net. They power the shop entirely with an array of solar panels. With all the carbon they are sequestering from tree rescues they are close to net carbon neutral in their business. Rick says they are a good example of combining sustainability, waste reduction, craft, and profitability for a right livelihood in environmentally difficult times.

Jacob Thaler

Jacob Thaler was born and raised in Corrales New Mexico. He never liked school and struggled to learn the way other people do. At age 16 he took the GED test and got his high school diploma. He worked at various jobs but realized that he didn’t want to work for someone else, so he opened his own business in Colorado. He had a successful business there from 2015 -2020. After finding that he had a daughter on the way he decided to sell his business and move back to New Mexico to be near family. Ariella was born right at the beginning of Covid, with a heart defect that required surgery at 10 days old. Jacob and his partner Angelica couldn’t work because they were in and out of the hospital for the next year. Now their daughter Ariella is a happy, healthy three years old now.

Jacob got interested in his dad’s hobby sawmill operation between hospital appointments, and they discovered that they liked working together. Jacob enjoyed both the mechanical aspect of running the mill and the joy of opening up ordinary logs and finding the beauty inside. They decided to make a business out of the mill with a focus on turning dead, downed, and unwanted trees into planks for sale. This part of the business quickly led to a full-scale furniture operation, along with custom milling for other people in the business. Jacob still runs the saw and operates the kiln and is learning the furniture-making trade from his dad and their shop partner. He is looking forward to growing the business and keeping it sustainable for the future.