Roland was born in Germany where he lived during his childhood. In his teens he moved to Honduras with his Family where he got his first contact with the woodwork trade while rebuilding a wooden Beach Resort that got badly damaged by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. By the time Roland was 17 years old he decided to get serious about his love to the woodwork and went back to Germany to enroll in a Furnitur
e and Woodwork Apprenticeship at the Schreinerei Schuhmacher. His Master Heiner was a passionate woodworker who loved the old way of the trade where the material and quality came first, and time was no factor. So it was no surprise that Roland, like the three apprentices before him, again won the first place in the final Woodwork Competition of the county of Schwäbisch Hall at the end of his apprenticeship in 2003. After finishing his studies in Germany, Roland returned to Honduras, where he first got into working with tropical Wood like Cumbillo, Marapolan, Santa Maria, Rosita and of course Mahogany and Teak. But again it was a Hurricane that changed the plans and ideas of Roland. Hurricane Ivan devastated the Cayman Island in 2004, and there was a great need of skilled people to help rebuild what was lost. Roland, looking for a new experience, decided to fly to Grand Cayman to start working with Mario & Son that then days used to be mostly a construction company. Over the years the cabinet and furniture jobs got more frequent, and rather sooner than later Mario & Son started their own Cabinet and Woodwork Shop, where Roland was in charge of most of the productions and installations, and even had the pleasure of teaching his apprentice Jeffrey from Costa Rica the woodwork trade. Grand Cayman was a great place for a woodworker.... The Jobs were very satisfying, high end Cabinets, where like he learned in Germany the material and quality always came first. "Do like you like it best" , or "like you would do it for yourself" became an often said sentence by the clients, and so Roland had room to live his passion and build many many projects like..... well.... "like he liked best". But all good things must come to an end, and so Roland decided after living on Grand Cayman for 6 years to leave the Island and go back to Honduras, Germany, or somewhere completely new. Roland will be leaving the Cayman Islands in 2011, off to new horizons and new ideas....
