West Tenn. woodworker ‘visualizes’ his full potential in business

DECATUR COUNTY, Tenn. — Woodworkers are skilled craftsmen whose tools of the trade are not just a tape measure and a power saw. Talented hands and a keen eye are also necessary in creating any type of item from wood.

One West Tennessee woodworker is more limited than most, but that is not holding him back. Thanks to the efforts of several organizations, he is able to “visualize” his full potential as a master craftsman.

“This is my shop,” said woodworker and cabinet maker Rickey Kelley. His reputation as a craftsmanship is known not only in Decatur County, where his business is located, but across West Tennessee.

“I happened upon [woodworking] by accident, really,” Kelley said. “I used to run around with a lot of buddies and we played a lot of radios and stereo equipment. I was building speaker boxes and stuff for vehicles. One thing led to another, I started kind of fooling around with something, ended up being a career.”

His tinkering with wood led him to build cedar chests, porch swings, jewelry boxes and wishing wells. For any talented woodworker, long hours of work and a keen eye to the smallest detail are the keys to producing fine works of art. But for Kelley, his ability as a craftsman comes with a challenge — he is legally blind.

“I have a hereditary disease called retinitis stigmatosa. It was detected when I was four years old,” Kelley said. “I actually made it through high school, and it just kept deteriorating after that.”

With the help of the Blind Services organization in purchasing machines and equipment, Kelley was able to expand into making cabinets.

“Cabinets are really tedious, and since I don’t have a lot of help here, most of what I do by myself. I do hire some people to come in and help paint,” Kelley said.

Kelley knew with his disability he needed help with his cabinet making. That is when he turned to the STAR Center in Jackson.

“Our mission is actually to help any person with disabilities to realize their full potential, ” said Sheri Pruitt,  a specialist at the STAR Center. She met Rickey while working at a different job.

“I worked with Vocational Rehabilitation. I was his ‘voc rehab’ counselor, and I referred him to the STAR Center so they could do the evaluations and determine what he needed for his business,” Pruitt said.

“Hadn’t been for the STAR Center and Vocational Rehabilitation helping me with buying equipment, I wouldn’t be here anyway,” Kelley said.

Allison Shipp is the director of rehabilitation services at the STAR Center. Through a series of grants from the state, Kelley was able to purchase tools and equipment to help him work independently and expand his business.

“We made lots of recommendations because he needed lots of equipment to be able to be safe and be independent,” Shipp said.

One of those tools is a talking tape measure that helps Kelley to measure accurately to make the right cut in his building projects. Another is a new piece of equipment that is scheduled to go online soon.

“This new piece of equipment I’ve got is a computer-operated machine. When you actually program your dimensions and your designs and patterns into the machines, you load it with materials. Then it will come back and cut everything out for you. It does it automatically,” Kelley said.

Even with his disability, Kelley said it does not hold him back. When asked if he’s ever gotten to the point of giving up, Kelley says his challenges have only led him to try harder.

“I’ve never wanted to give up. It’s usually a mistake for people to tell me that I can’t do something,” Kelley said. “I’ll come up with a way to figure out some way to do it. One of the things I believe in is doing it right.”

Kelley said after he gets his new computerized machine up and running, in addition to increasing his ability to make porch swings and cabinets, his goal is to start mass producing smaller products to sell to chain stores.