When you’re born into the Rockler woodworking family, you whittle your own pacifier. Right? Not exactly. Rockler’s now executive chairman, Ann Jackson, wasn’t even allowed to take high school shop.
“I’m old enough that girls couldn’t take woodworking in high school,” says Jackson. “And I should have been in woodworking because I failed tuna salad!”
In fact, the daughter of the founder of Rockler Woodworking and Hardware never made sawdust fly until she was an adult.
“My first big project was a dictionary stand—amazingly fun,” she says. “Turning [shaping wood with a lathe and turning tools] is very meditative: You have to have such intense concentration you can only breathe and focus. It’s very relaxing.”
Not only does the girl who couldn’t take woodshop in school now head a company that supplies woodshops, but just this past…
