WMIA honors Seattle instructor as Educator of the Year

The Woodworking Machinery Industry Association will present its 2020 Educator of the Year award to Jeffrey Wasserman, an instructor at Seattle Central College’s Wood Technology Center.

The annual award is presented to an educational institution or company with a structured curriculum tailored to training individuals for careers in the woodworking industry. It is part of WMIA’s Wooden Globe Awards program, which recognizes how investing in new equipment and technology can impact a company’s productivity, efficiency, and profitability, as well as salutes the contributions of educators.

Wasserman has been an instructor at the Wood Technology Center since 2003 in the core Introduction to Professional Woodworking Class, the cabinetmaking and architectural woodworking program, and an original community class on furniture design. His extracurricular work has included service as the Faculty Advisor to the Wood Technology Center Student Council and currently as the department’s representative to the Faculty Senate of Seattle Central College.

“Through our Wooden Globe Educator of the Year award program, WMIA is proud to continue our recognition of the positive impact being made by woodworking educators across the country,” says Chris Hofmann, WMIA Education Committee Chairman and a Lamello product manager for Colonial Saw.

“At a time when fostering and training the next generation of woodworking professionals is so vitally important not just to our industry but to the nation’s economy at-large, we cannot overvalue the contributions made by dedicated instructors and mentors.”

Wasserman received his first formal training at the Wood Technology Center in 1979 and earned a BFA in Furniture Design from the Program in Artisanry at Boston University/Swain School of Design in 1986. Throughout his career, his focus has been on the intersection of design and craft, and on forming a respectful collaboration between the two, according to the WMIA.

Wasserman will be honored during a reception at IWF 2020 in Atlanta. 

This article originally appeared in the June 2020 issue.