Battle Ground craftsman Dale Geldreich has been hard at work building one of his specialties, a rocking chair designed for children.
It would be one of about 30 that he has built in his career as an upholsterer and builder, though it wasn’t necessarily his career path to begin with.
Geldreich has been around. Growing up on a North Dakota farm, he left to take on furniture warehouse work in Salt Lake City. Following that and some classes tailored to the next jump, he moved to Silicon Valley to work with one of the pioneers of technology — Four Phase Systems.
The company was one of the first companies to use what are commonly referred to as computer chips — integrated circuits with significant improvements over the old tech. He worked there until 1986 when the company that bought Four Phase, Motorola, decided the business model employed by Four Phase was insufficient.
Geldreich was out of a job. Then, the upholstery trade kicked back up and kept him busy. From 1986 until 1999 he was running an upholstery business, utilizing what he had learned prior to being a Silicon Valley guy.
Now Geldreich is in Battle Ground, having moved closer to family in recent years. His production of fine upholstered furniture has tapered, though he has expressed interest in getting back into production.
“If somebody wants one, I’ll build one,” Geldreich said.
Rocking chairs made specifically for children has been his focus as of late. In his typically frank and short dialogue, he explained his focus was all about the joy.
“It’s just something I like to do. It makes kids happy,” he said.
As a testament to his creative ability, Geldreich said he picked up a welding class, eventually turning out some impressive metalwork for mail post signage and other domestic art pieces. As to why he picked up the skill, Geldreich was characteristically soft-spoken.
“I was just interested in it,” Geldreich said.
Geldreich said one of the more interesting parts of his work was meeting interesting folk. He gave an example of an individual he met in Auburn through happenstance; a woman who happened to be married to a producer of reality TV shows including Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers.
“So I asked him one time, ‘do you get out on the stormy seas?’” Geldreich said, “and he said, ‘oh, no; we have a crew to do that.’”
Before he became an accomplished craftsman, he was just a young man looking for a job, driving cross-country to find somewhere that would pay him a dollar an hour.
To that point of cross-country driving, Geldreich said cutting across Wyoming in the 1950s in order to stay awake during dark hours he had the radio playing. He gave one instance when talking to his road trip companion that 60-odd years removed seems remarkable.
“Hey, Jim, … listen to this new singer, I think he’s pretty good,” Geldreich said, “his name is Elvis.”
