After we had our first child, Christina, in Polk General Hospital, without health insurance, we decided that I needed to seek a new career that included health insurance and a retirement package. Melanie called around and found that I could go to the police academy at night and on weekends in Winter Haven, Florida at Polk Community College. It was one of their first night/weekend classes and was pay as you go (Pay your own tuition and supply your own equipment). In October of 1992, I graduated from the police academy at Polk Community College. The local departments had a hiring freeze and at the same time Hurricane Andrew came across south Florida which flooded the market with construction workers from other states and my construction work dried up. My Dad had recently moved back to New York and had a construction job for me at the company that he was working for at the time. Melanie contacted several police departments in New York, and it sounded easy to get a job with one of their departments, pass a civil service exam and get a job. This sounds simple enough, but we did not realize that they also required an Associates Degree as well, that I did not have. After moving to New York and finding out that I needed an Associates Degree, we decided that I would go to Genessee Community College to get my Associates Degree. I worked full time, went to college four nights a week and 20 months later graduated from Genesee Community College with my Associates Degree in Criminal Justice. During this period, we welcomed our second child, Heather into the family. None of this could I have done without Melanie's help and encouragement. She took care of our home, the children and proofread all my papers. It is interesting that two motorcycle trips have shaped our lives in such profound ways. Upon graduation from the police academy we submitted 99 resumes to different police and sheriff’s departments in Florida, as that was my best chance at being hired in my chosen profession. In preparation for trips to Florida to process with different departments we had purchased a 1979 Honda motorcycle because it would be more fuel efficient for me to take trips back to Florida for processing. The only trip that I used the motorcycle for was when I had my polygraph examination with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. One of the baseline questions the polygraphist asked me was how I traveled to the appointment. I replied that I had ridden my motorcycle. He seemed surprised that I had ridden a motorcycle from New York to Florida for a job and later in my application process, during my oral boards, the motorcycle trip came back up. I was subsequently hired by the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office in March of 1996 and two of the people on my oral board said that one reason that they decided to hire me was because of the motorcycle trip. Fast forward to the latter part of my career with the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office and we have another motorcycle trip. After our children were grown up, we purchased a 2011 Victory Vision motorcycle because we wanted to take our 25th wedding anniversary trip on a motorcycle around this beautiful country. We use Bluetooth earpieces in our helmets so that we can communicate with one another while we are riding down the road. As we completed the 7,204 mile 3-week trip around the country the most common phrase that we both said to each other was "WOW!" This country has so many beautiful places that just amaze the eyes. We have since taken 4 trips around the country on the motorcycle and each time, from the Grand Canyon to Yellowstone National Park and everything that we have seen in between, our most common phrase is "WOW!" As I was getting closer to retirement, we started looking at what we wanted to do after I retired. We were watching YouTube and saw the amazing things that can be done with CNC routers and Lasers. We subsequently bought the equipment before I retired to start the next chapter in our lives, but we needed a company name. We had two water oak trees in our front yard. Every few years we had to cut the limbs back on the water oak trees to keep them away from the house and I hated to put the branches we cut out for transportation to the landfill. I decided I would cut up some of the larger limbs into lumber and see what I could make out of them. I used the CNC router to make some rifling twist pens that I gave to my squad for Christmas. One day we were brainstorming for a name and "The Water Oak Workshop" was one of the names that came up, and it really fit how we feel when we see amazing things and say "WOW!" — That is how the company name was born! ​ As we were working at getting our equipment dialed in, and deciding on the kinds of products we wanted to make ,I retired from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. We decided that we wanted to live in a more rural setting where we could run our business from our home and do the other things we enjoy doing. We found this wonderful piece of property in Lake City, Florida that we purchased in October of 2022. It is 13 acres with a pond and a pine forest. It also has multiple water oaks around the property. One of the sayings that we use in our lives is “If you do the right thing, you don’t have to worry about being wrong.” From a practical standpoint this philosophy means that to do the right thing you must educate yourself to know what you are doing to the best of your ability. From a deeper context, we as human beings know deep down right from wrong. The battle in life is making the hard decisions to do what is right even when it is inconvenient. With this in mind, our company brand is “Do the right thing!”.