Author: Brad Deen
NEWTON — Seven offenders from Catawba Correctional Center are learning to build furniture and rebuild their lives.
They are the first cohort of offender-students training in the furniture craft through a partnership between the N.C. Department of Adult Correction and Catawba Valley Community College. In just over a year, the college’s Furniture Academy will provide the skills and hands-on experience to work in the Hickory area’s famous furniture industry.
Preparing offenders to find steady employment when they’re released is a critical factor in keeping them out of prison.
“Education is one of the most effective tools we have against recidivism,” Brooke Wheeler, NCDAC superintendent of education services, told the group at a certification ceremony Tuesday. “What you’ve committed yourselves to doing will affect your families, and it will affect generations to come. If you’re successful, those around you are more likely to be successful.”
NCDAC’s emphasis on rehabilitation and re-entry coincides with Gov. Roy Cooper’s mandate for state government agencies to cooperate toward making the transition for released offenders as smooth as possible.
Maggie Brewer, chief deputy secretary for rehabilitation and correctional services, told the group how proud Gov. Cooper was after a recent State Cabinet meeting where she mentioned the furniture-making partnership.
“He was happy to hear so many of these things are coming to fruition,” Brewer said. “One of the things he wants, and we want, is to make sure we give our population employable skills as they leave our institutions.”
The Furniture Academy is unique, said Mark Jordan, a retired Bassett executive who’s found a new calling with the college’s furniture program. “What we have here is a free-standing, fully equipped furniture factory. There’s nothing like it in the United States,” he said.
Located near Catawba Valley’s main campus, the Academy is normally open to students in the evenings. In October, Catawba Correctional students began arriving each morning. “They come in here at 7 o’clock, ready to go,” Jordan said.
The partnership was born last year, when Catawba Valley’s administrators met Rebecca Jonas, program director at Catawba Correctional, at an education conference. A brief discussion revealed the prison and the Furniture Academy had more in common than a Newton address.
“They said, ‘We have this building that’s vacant during the day,’” Jonas recalled. “What we’d love is to see them [the offenders] employed and successful when they’re released. That’s the goal.”
A year of planning involved asking tough questions, such as which offenders to accept into the program. Because the Furniture Academy is a 60-week course, anyone with an earlier release date would have to be ineligible. Experience would also weigh in an applicant’s favor.
“My dad owned a cabinet company, but I’ve never done any kind of furniture work before,” said Brent Pickler, who’s projected to be released in April 2026, just about the time he’ll finish the program.
The curriculum consists of eight units — from the very basics such as workplace expectations and background on the industry itself, which the Catawba Correctional students just completed, to later units in woodworking, upholstery and 21st century technology. By the end of the program, students will have gained more than 300 hours of experience on each of several tools and machines, from bandsaws and fabric cutters to computer-controlled equipment.
The high-tech aspect appeals to Marc Pone, scheduled for release in 2028. “Working with my hands, that’s fun,” Pone said, but what he’s looking forward to most of all is learning AutoCAD computer drawing software. “I want to design furniture. I want to work on the style of it,” he said.
Franklin Ensminger, due for release in 2027, worked for furniture manufacturers such as Singer and Broyhill when he was younger. “I was disheartened when the furniture industry left here and went overseas,” he said.
In the last 30 years, some of the industry has returned to the Hickory area, attracted by the craftsmanship available to make generational-quality items. “What we’re making here is wood. It’s solid. Everything is done correctly. It’ll last,” Ensminger said.
The return of furniture manufacturing should heighten the employment prospects of offender-students. The second cohort is already forming at Catawba Correctional.
One other aspect of the industry will make the Furniture Academy attractive, said Rusty Beam, another industry retiree turned Catawba Valley CC educator.
“Approximately 16,000 people are employed in the furniture industry in this area, and 6,000 of them are going to retire in the next few years,” Beam said. “There’s no one picking up these crafts anymore, except right here.”
Despite their unusual and rocky path into the industry, Beam said the Catawba Correctional group make excellent learners.
“They’re interested in every little thing,” he said “They see what they’re doing here as a way out.”