Team
Meet the Individuals Behind Heartwood Projects
A Collaboration of Wood Experts
Heartwood Projects is a collaboration between five like-minded individuals with the specific goal of utilizing the trees being removed right here in Dane County.
GARRETT HUGHES
Project Manager
As an arborist and co-owner of Heartwood Tree Company, I am focused on working with homeowners and businesses to maximize the potential that trees have on their property. This extends to the entire life cycle of the tree, which is where Heartwood Projects comes in. In situations where a tree does need to be removed we believe that maximizing the potential of the tree is of the highest priority. I am passionate about giving people the opportunity to connect with their local natural environment, even when the trees they love can no longer stay standing.
TIM KUHN
Business Manager
Earlier in my career as a business analyst, creating efficiencies and reducing waste/cost was the top priority. After being in the arborist world for 10 years, I have found an appreciation of our urban forest. With truck loads of wood being pruned everyday, I have developed a new passion: repurposing local wood into something meaningful. Heartwood Projects allows us to leverage our collective skills to turn local wood into functional art.
DAMIEN LUYET
Craftsman & Designer
Life as a carpenter has meant many things over the course of a 25-year career. It has meant being a residential and commercial remodeler, a furniture artist, a museum exhibit and public art fabricator, and a designer and builder of many things. Being conscious of the embodied ecological impact of materials and finding uses for “waste” have always been at the heart of my work as a designer and fabricator. Heartwood Projects has allowed me a newfound freedom in design and thought because using trees from customers yards to build projects for customers yards means that I am using wood that travels a shorter path than I ever thought possible.
JON ROACH
Craftsman & Sawyer
Woodworking started out as a reprieve from the day to day stressors of being a career firefighter and paramedic and has since turned into so much more. Starting out as a solo woodworker with Living Wood Creations, I used whatever wood I could get my hands on but some of my favorite projects are the ones that tell a story including using logs from a local property to create a unique piece of furniture. Using local resources and reducing waste are important to the business model of Heartwood Projects and I'm proud to help increase the awareness and use of urban wood locally.
BRENT VALENTINE
Project Manager
Being a certified arborist means our main focus is tree care, but Projects is an outlet for all the wood we create on a daily basis. This adventure allows us to reintroduce the tree back into people’s yards in another useful form. Utilizing wood to its fullest potential has been a passion of mine since the beginning of Heartwood Tree Company. Certified arborist by day and aspiring wood worker by night. I’m very proficient at destruction so Heartwood Projects is going to build my construction skills!