Visits to the many High Point furniture showrooms weren't the only tours taken this week by attendees of the High Point Market.
The Generator at Congdon Yards' Plant 7 building at 410 W. English Road was also a frequent stop for market attendees, beginning with a Monday night cocktail party featuring demonstrations from Walt Ruffier, executive director of the 6,070-square-foot workshop. Ruffier told Triad Business Journal that he spent much of Market week showing conventioneers what the equipment could do.
The cutting edge, commercial-grade woodworking equipment at the Generator includes a 3-axis router and two 5-axis routers with the capability to make speciality prototypes and custom furniture pieces. The movable axis can make a variety of angled and rounded cuts not possible with more standard machines.
The Generator has approximately $2 million of equipment, much of it from Italian-based SCM Group USA.
For example, David Congdon, whose family was responsible for most of the $40 million-plus cost toward the development of Congdon Yards' two 100,000-square-foot buildings, sat in a specialty chair whose woodwork was created at the Generator in Plant 7's first floor lounge during Monday's VIP grand opening party for the Generator.
David Congdon's parents, former Old Dominion president and now chairman emeritus Earl Congdon Jr., and wife Kathryn Congdon, also were in attendance. So was Helen Congdon, David Congdon's wife.
"It appears people want to buy a small collection of something and they want something unique," said David Congdon, who is executive chairman of the board of Old Dominion Freight Lines and among the TBJ's just unveiled list of Power Players. "It can be built here and fulfill what they're looking for."
Ruffier said about 90 of the specialty chairs -- made to recreate hand-crafted chairs built 50 years ago -- were made at the Generator for Dunbar Furniture of High Point for use in a New York hotel. With a prototype, the chairs now take only 20 minutes to make.
Open about four months ago for use by the public, the Generator can create prototypes in one day that would ordinarily take weeks. As executive director, Ruffier plays a major role in creating prototypes for innovative designers and craftsmen.
"We've got a lot of work, mostly furniture in one form or another," Ruffier said.
Ruffier told grand opening guests that a design drawn on a napkin can be transformed into a prototype using equipment from the Generator.
Ruffier and Patrick Chapin, president and CEO of the Business High Point Chamber of Commerce, which manages Congdon Yards, said large furniture makers don't like to stop production of mass products to make specialty pieces.
"We're not putting the shops out of business, but we are fulfilling a niche," said Chapin, whose leadership on Congdon Yards is among the reasons he was among the Power Players recognized this week by Triad Business Journal in a special section and reception Thursday evening.
