Page 36 - BusinessWest July 24, 2023

Super Bowls
Michael Preli Turns His Woodturning Passion into a Successful Business
BY JOSEPH BEDNAR
[email protected]
“It got my wife motivated, too, because she could see that, with a young child, I had an opportunity
to do something from home instead of going back to work.”
Michael Preli’s career has been one of constant advancement — not necessarily in title or income, but in job satisfaction.
And he’s a long way from where he started, in the auto-body field.
“My father is a frame technician for auto body. And I always thought that’s what I wanted to do,” Preli told BusinessWest. “So I started working in a body shop when I left school. I did that for a couple of years.”
What he didn’t expect was that he’d come to like wood more than metal.
Auto-body work “didn’t bring me the satisfaction I thought it would,” he recalled. “Metal is cold and dirty and dusty — like, the dust sticks to you.”
Meanwhile, his rented house, on the same property he worked at, needed some improvements, including a new door. He did the job himself, even though he had never done any woodworking.
“I got a lot of satisfaction from it. My boss came over and looked at it and said, ‘wow, you did a really nice job on this.’ I said, ‘oh, thanks.’ And that stuck with me for a while. So, when an opportu- nity came up to do framing for houses, I took it, and I left the world of auto body. Thank God.”
These days, Preli owns his own home-based business in Suffield, Conn., Cellar Dweller WoodTurning, creating and selling a host of artful pieces, including plates, bowls, urns, and decorative pieces. But it took a couple more steps to get there, as we’ll see.
Michael Preli works on the lathe in his basement in Suffield. lot of brute force, not a lot of finesse. I always gravitated toward the Staff Photo
Starting with framing, which he characterized as work with “a jobs that took more patience, and my overseers saw that and placed
Collaborating with clients
and other professionals to help create healthy communities and a sustainable future.
WWW.OTO-ENV.COM
Providing many services to clients including,
• LEEDS and IBC Indoor Air Quality Testing
• Radon Testing
• Water Quality Testing
• Environmental Due Dilligence Studies
• Geotechnical Studies and Assessments
• Civil Engineering Support
• Pre-Renovation Hazardous Materials
Assessment and Testing
• MCP Compliance and LSP Services
• Construction Support and Oversight
• and more!
[email protected] 413-788-6222
36 JULY 24, 2023
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