First Place South Region
David Miller
Summerville, North Carolina

A tree and a need were brought together by David Miller and his employees in Summerville, North
Carolina. The tree was a white oak felled by lightening in David's front yard. The need was for a buckboard wagon so his wife could enjoy the couple's horses since she was unable to ride them.

David owns a company that cleans fuel tanks on ships in a commercial shipyard. When work slowed in January, rather than lay off employees, David had them build the buckboard.

David is a hobby sawyer, owning a Wood- Mizer sawmill since 1999. He hauled his sawmill to his company, along with the tree from his yard. Cutting, planing, sanding and fastening the wood was completely different from his employees' regular work - several had never held a skilled job prior to working for David's company.

"My company strives to be the best tank cleaning company in the world," David says.
"I have known since the first day that I owned the sawmill that Wood-Mizer is the best in the world at what you do. We have already won this contest, because my employees learned so much about how to make a project happen. I cannot express the joy and pride my employees had in taking a tree and converting it into the wagon."