Kelly’s professional career began in 1977 and he opened his first commercial furniture shop in Berea in 1978. Kelly’s formal training began at the University of Cincinnati’s Ohio College of Applied Science and he continued his education in the Industrial Arts program at Berea College where he was mentored by instructor and wood turner Rude Osolnik. Kelly is the author of The Tablesaw Book, is featured in two Fine Woodworking Videos, and has contributed numerous articles to Fine Woodworking magazine, Wood magazine, American Woodworker, Popular Woodworking, Woodworkers Journal, Custom Woodworking Business magazine, and the Time/Life woodworking book series.

Peter Galbert is a full time chairmaker, toolmaker, teacher and writer.

Peter has taught at many craft schools around the country including the Penland School of Crafts, the North Bennet Street School, the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship, Kelly Mehler’s School of Woodworking, Highland Woodworking, the Arrowmont School of Crafts and The Port Townsend School of Woodworking.
Besides making chairs and teaching, Peter also writes the Chairnotes blog and produces the Galbert Caliper as well as other woodworking tools. He currently lives and works in Boston, MA. In 2015, he published his first book Chairmaker's Notebook with Lost Art Press

Megan Fitzpatrick is the publisher at Rude Mechanicals Press and a peripatetic woodworking instructor and freelance writer/editor; she is a former editor of Popular Woodworking Magazine, and now writes a monthly blog for Fine Woodworking. She lives in Cincinnati where she’s renovating a 1905 house, but can usually be found in the Lost Art Press shop in Covington, Ky.

Nancy Hiller is a full-time professional cabinetmaker with nearly 40 years’ experience. She specializes in period-style work for buildings of the late-19th through mid-20th centuries.

Hiller trained through the City & Guilds of London and worked for two shops in England before moving back to the United States in 1987. Here she worked for other shops before starting her business, NR Hiller Design, in 1995. Her work was chosen for exhibit in the Fearless Furniture show at the Indiana State Museum and she has been a presenter at Woodworking in America (2016) and Fine Woodworking Live (2019). She has taught at the Kelly Mehler School of Woodworking, Marc Adams School of Woodworking, Kansas City Woodworkers’ Guild, and Lost Art Press storefront. She is a frequent contributor to Fine Woodworking Magazine and has written for Popular Woodworking, Fine Homebuilding, and other national publications. In
addition, she has authored four books — English Arts & Crafts Furniture, Making Things Work, A Home of Her Own, and The Hoosier Cabinet in Kitchen History — and is working on a book about kitchens for Lost Art Press.

Cathryn Peters has been restoring wicker furniture, weaving chair seats and teaching those skills for over 40 years. She has a special passion for passing on her skills to others, so the craft does not become a lost art.

Cathryn has taught chair caning, other seat weaving techniques, and basketry across the country through woodworking schools, folk schools, basket guild workshops, and community education programs. And her antler basketry is frequently juried into art exhibitions and gallery shows nationwide.

Her efforts in the craft business, furniture restoration, and basketry world are mentioned in many books and periodicals including the Crafts Report, Basket Bits, Splint Woven Basketry, and most recently, English Arts and Crafts Furniture by cabinet maker, Nancy Hiller.

Cathryn is a founding member of the first and only North American chair caning guild, called The SeatWeavers’ Guild, Inc.® and served two terms as President since its inception in 2007 until 2011.

Michael Puryear is an internationally recognized designer/furniture maker. He is self-taught learning his craft through reading and experimentation and has been practicing his craft for more than 30 years. His work has been exhibited in Museums and galleries around the US such as the Museum of Art & Design in NYC; Mint Museum in Charlotte, NC and the Peabody-Essex Museum in Salem, MA. His work has been published widely most recently in Makers: A History of American Studio Craft published by the University of North Carolina Press and Furniture With Soul: Master Wood workers and their Craft published by Kodansha. His work is found in the collections of: the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Rockefeller University and the Newark Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
He has taught extensively at many of the craft schools in the US a well as Parson School of Design and was an adjunct associate professor at the State University of New York at Purchase for 13 years. He is a member of Furniture New York, The Hudson Valley Furniture Makers and a former trustee and member of the Furniture Society. He maintains his studio in the Catskill Mountains of NY.

Brendan Bernhardt Gaffney is a woodworker, teacher and writer based in Covington, Ky. After learning cabinetmaking from his father (and a stint in academia designing and researching musical instruments) he attended College of the Redwoods (now The Krenov School) where he honed his talents as a designer and maker of fine furniture. Since attending school, Brendan has worn the hats of toolmaker, teacher, writer and furnituremaker, with articles published in Popular Woodworking and Mortise and Tenon magazines. Currently, he is researching and building vernacular chair designs from around the world and writing a biography of James Krenov to be published by Lost Art Press in 2020.

Andy Glenn joined the team at Berea College Student Craft in the summer of 2017. Since Andy's arrival, the Woodcraft program has begun a return to traditional joinery, hand tool instruction and use, and a re-commitment to the pursuit of excellence that made Berea synonymous with quality handcraft. Andy came to Berea after spending 14 years in the northeast (first in Boston, then Maine), where he trained at the North Bennet Street School (NBSS) before working in repair, cabinet and furniture shops. For ten years, he has taught continuing education classes at NBSS and as a guest instructor in the Cabinet and Furniture Making program. He is excited to help lead the school going forward: "Berea is a welcoming place with amazing creative energy and dedication to craft. We hope to embody those same traits in the school: genuine hospitality, sense of community, and high quality craft. It will be different than it was (it will have to be - there's only one Kelly Mehler!), though I hope all who attend will find a similar essence in our efforts.” ~Andy Glenn