In his retirement, Brian Steckler found a career as an artisan woodworker, selling locally and nationally.

Brian Steckler didn’t quite envision his retirement unfolding like this.

A woodworker and artisan, he specializes in crafting live-edge wood pieces and experimenting with resin in unique ways. He balances custom projects with commissions for hotels and local businesses, sometimes shipping his work across the country.

When he’s not in his shop, Steckler fundraises and leads trips for Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing, a nonprofit that organizes fly fishing excursions for disabled veterans, helping them connect with each other out in nature as a way to heal.

I found Steckler through Facebook Marketplace, my scroll pausing on images of beautiful walnut slabs and the swirling knots of olive wood. I paid a visit to his woodworking shop at his home in Carmel Valley. It’s a space that’s evolved over the years, outgrowing the garage, growing into a downstairs workshop equipped with climate-controlled areas, high-tech saws, molds and other machinery.

The retired officer, former teacher and researcher at the Naval Postgraduate School, as well as a retired IT executive, shares this space, often consulting others who are looking to learn and want experience using the tools.

His work, known as “Outta the Woods,” can be found in Sugar Farms market in Carmel Plaza, online on social media platforms and outtathewoods.shop.

Weekly: What’s your first memory of working with wood in any kind of way?

Steckler: Junior high school, back in Seattle. I took a woodshop class and then I didn’t do any woodworking for many, many years. I picked it back up again about, I’d say, 10 years ago.

But I was doing some carpentry as well. I painted houses when I was in high school and after I remodeled this kitchen and bathrooms and other houses. There’s a difference. Woodworking is making things out of wood, rather than building.

Do you remember the first thing that you made?

I think it was a bowl. I might even still have that bowl here somewhere.

What did that jump into woodworking look like for you?

First thing I did was I made all these planters out of cedar. I started woodworking when I was full-time – I was an IT executive type. I was constantly on my laptop, and to get my hands away from all that and my eyes away from the screen, I would go out in the garage and build stuff out of wood, and slowly started getting more and more tools.

What was the first piece that you sold?

I think it was a wine box tray. I was really into those for a while. They’re the tops of wooden wine boxes that I put edges and handles on, and make them into trays.

I started making this and other stuff, and [my wife] said, “You need to figure out a way to pay for all these tools that you’re buying.” I said, “OK, let me see if I can sell a few things.”

So I went down to some galleries in Carmel and over time, four different galleries said yes. I started selling, people started buying them. And then I started making bigger things, then with resin.

How does an artisan up the ante?

I’m online a lot – Pinterest, eBay, Instagram. I do searches for things that I’m interested in, and I’ll see something and that gives me ideas. My biggest friend is YouTube. And I know how to tell the difference between bad and good videos now. So I learned a lot from that.

What’s the biggest misconception about woodworking?

For laymen: Wood changes constantly based on the atmosphere, the type of wood, how dry it is, and where it is. Wood will do all kinds of crazy stuff.

For the woodworker: how expensive resin is and how important it is to have your molds so they don’t leak. I bought this big mold for this big table and I put it on my dining room, poured about six gallons of resin in it with the wood and the edge blew out. I had resin all over the floor. It turns from liquid to solid pretty quickly. Make your molds watertight.

What’s up next?

I got another customer who I’m making a big, live-edge door to his boardroom for, he’s in Fort Worth Texas. I made fire pits, those went to Florida, Texas, Atlanta.

Me and my brothers and my dad – it’s just kind of this hereditary thing. We’re always doing something, even in retirement.