For senior Danny McReynolds, “You don’t work a day in your life if you love what you do,” is more than just a saying. Last year, McReynolds and Dawson Borcherding, a friend he met through Boy Scouts, started their company D and D Woodcraft. The two handcraft wooden pens separately, but sell them together.

“When I was growing up, I always liked going down to the workshop and doing all sorts of building things, like I built a shed in my backyard,” McReynolds said. “I’m majoring in construction management, so I’ve always kind of liked building and being around those kind of things.”

Pen-making is more than just a source of income for McReynolds — it’s a way for him to escape stress. McReynolds has woodworking machines installed in his basement so he can use the machines when he wants.

“I really like woodworking, so being able to do that and make money off it is all the better,” McReynolds said.

Q: How do you sell them?

A: I have a shop on Etsy and during the winter time — I guess it was November — I went to four other craft shows and had a booth at each one of those, and then also I sell them just by word of mouth.”

Q: What challenges have you faced?

A: The biggest thing  is getting the word out that I actually have this stuff and finding a way to sell it. With all the experience I have woodworking, making the pens isn’t really the challenge — it’s        more of trying to get rid of the ones I have.”

Q: How will this help you in the future?

A: I think it’s always a good experience to have some kind of business. One, because you get so many aspects of life in there. You get lessons about marketing, [public relations] and actually interacting with people. So, a lot of it is people relations, and I think that’s going to help in the future — either with job interviews, or scholarship interviews or anything like that, anything where you have to go out into the real world and talk with people and interact with people. I think that’s given me a lot of confidence.”

Shop the pen collection here.