Middlebury graduates return to VT to start carpentry business

Treeline Terrain’s current collection includes lakes and ski areas in Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, a Saddleback Mountain cribbage board and a model from the Adirondack High Peaks region. For the holidays, they introduced a Stowe keychain model. Photos by Erica Housekeeper

by Christine McGowan, Vermont Forest Industry Network When three friends from Middlebury College couldn’t find the perfect gift for their boss, they decided to create something special. Nathaniel Klein, Jacob Freedman and Alex Gemme wanted to thank their supervisor at the Middlebury Snow Bowl for helping them establish a scholarship program.

“We had such a great ski coaching experience and wanted to give him something that was related to the Snow Bowl,” Gemme said. “We had this idea of ​​carving a model of the ski resort out of wood.”

And so they did.

Freedman, a geography student, discovered how to map the ski area using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. From there, the trio figured out how to send the digital mapping file to a CNC router that would carve a wooden model.

Klein, who grew up in his grandfather’s carpentry workshop, put the finishing touches to the model, hand-sanding and rubbing with linseed oil to bring out the grain of the wood. It was an instant hit.

“Everyone was telling us we had to sell them,” Gemme said. “We didn’t plan to start a business; it was actually an accident.

Still undergraduates at Middlebury at the time, they registered their business in the spring of 2021 and Treeline Terrains was officially in business.

Co-founders Jacob Freedman, Alex Gemme and Nathaniel Klein graduated from Middlebury and launched Treeline Terrains in 2021.

Support for entrepreneurial communities and wood products

As Biology, Chemistry, and Geography majors, they realized they would need to hone their business skills to really try Treeline Terrains. In their final year, they enrolled in Middlebury Entrepreneurs, a winter course offered by the Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies for students who want to start their own business.

“Without the class, we wouldn’t have gotten to where we are,” Freedman said. “It allowed us to take our idea in this amorphous form and figure out the main hurdles we had to face in going from an idea to selling something. From there, we were able to start an LLC that spring, which was a quicker turnaround than we had anticipated.”

In the summer of 2020, they received a grant from MiddChallenge, a college program that funds student entrepreneurs for the summer to explore a business idea.

They decided to buy a CNC router and move into Klein’s grandfather’s basement in Massachusetts for the summer where they would have access to a workshop and woodworking tools.

They spent the summer refining their models, figuring out how to add things like buildings, rivers, lakes, and trails… and planning their return to the Green Mountains.

Treeline Terrains co-founder Nathaniel Klein begins a piece in a studio in Middlebury. Each mountain is made with laminated hardwoods, carved with a CNC router, hand sanded and finished with linseed oil for long term protection.

“It’s always been our goal to be back in Vermont,” Freedman said, “but housing is really tight and we were in the middle of the pandemic.”

After searching all over the state, they found a local builder willing to let them use his store in Middlebury and, through their connections, were also able to land an apartment.

“Community ties were on our side,” Freedman added. “It was a business decision to return to Middlebury and it was definitely the right one.”

Another key element in their decision to locate the business in Middlebury was their relationship with the A. Johnson Co. sawmill in Bristol, where they source all the timber for their designs.

“They’re like a big family and have competitive prices and great products,” Klein said. “They have expertise gained in the industry for most of their life and are willing to share it with us. Once we found them, we weren’t going to go anywhere else.

As their vision for the company came to fruition, Jacob Freedman, who studied geography at Middlebury College, discovered how to map ski areas using Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. At Treeline Terrains, all elevation and trail data comes from the USGS 3DEP program and the OSM Outdoors dataset, with lakes and water bodies found in the NHD dataset.

Connecting people to the places they love

As the models have evolved, so has their client. The company caught the eye of local nonprofits including the Middlebury Area Land Trust who asked them to create a model of their 18-mile trail system so children could tactically engage with it. the trail system, and Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports who had them create a 3D model of the Sugarbush ski resort for visually impaired skiers and snowboarders.

“These are educational elements that help people connect with place,” Freedman said.

They also recently completed a large piece commissioned for a family who wanted to see their home on a map of their local ski area.

“It was really fun to do,” Gemme said. “The bigger the scale, the more terrain there is to play with.” He added that the family had marked their house on the model with a gemstone.

One of their largest pieces was presented to Senator Patrick Leahy on November 10 to commemorate the Senator’s receipt of the Vermont Outdoor Business Association Trailblazer Award. The piece is a physical overview of Vermont showing all the natural mountain and water features of the state – something they would like to do more for other states.

While a large custom model can run into the thousands of dollars, most parts on the company’s website range from $70 to a few hundred dollars. The current collection includes lakes and ski areas from Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, a cribbage board from Saddleback Mountain and a model from the Adirondack High Peaks region.

For the holidays, they’ve introduced Mt Mansfield and Camel’s Hump keychain patterns that sell for $14.

“Coins are really about helping people connect to the places they love,” Freedman said.

Planning for growth in Vermont

The business is a full time job for all three and they have big visions for the future of the business. To start, Klein would like the company to have its own retail space and a full set of quality tools, some of which are currently rented or borrowed.

Gemme would like that to happen by the spring of 2022. He adds that the company will need two or three more routers if growth meets expectations, much of which is centered on the ski market.

“We iterate and try something new every day,” Freedman said. “Most of our peers sit at a desk all day or do something more related to their major, but every day is a new and exciting adventure for us.”

“Alex and I thought we were going to be doctors,” Klein said with a smile, “but now who knows.”

About the Vermont Forest Industry Network

Vermont’s forest products industry contributes $1.3 billion to the Vermont economy and supports more than 9,000 direct and indirect jobs in forestry, logging, processing, specialized woodworking, construction and wood burning (2017). These figures more than double when maple syrup production and forest recreation are taken into account.

The Vermont Forest Industry Network creates space for strong industry-wide relationships and collaboration, including helping to promote new and existing markets for Vermont wood products. Learn more at www.vsjf.org.