Every once in a while, there is a person or a company or a philosophy that stands out. Most of the time it’s a tech company like Intense Debate, but this time it’s about something as non-tech as you can get. When I was in Vermont a few months ago I met two extraordinary individuals who run an excellent business.

Furniture is not generally something that I’m very interested in. My family is in the midst of redesigning our first floor and I am drawn more to the home entertainment side of things rather than the furniture side of things. My position is that when we finish the room, people are not going to care what type of arm is on the chairs so long as they are comfortable and don’t fall apart. It takes something special to warrant my attention on a matter as trivial as furniture.

Charles Shackleton and Miranda Thomas (yes, he’s related to the Shackleton of Antartic exploration fame) made me think that perhaps I should be paying a bit more attention. A bit of background: Shackleton came over from Ireland to work in the American crafts market. He started as a glass blower and worked with Simon Pearce, another Vermont craftsman. He branched out into furniture and left glassblowing permanently to start his own company. His wife, Miranda Thomas, is an amazingly talenter potter. Her work was even used by President Clinton as a gift to the Pope John Paul II during his last papal visit to the United States.

The furniture and pottery itself is stunning. If forced to make a technology analogy, I would call it the Apple of pottery. It’s simple and unadorned, but all the more attractive for it. The wood and simple construction is what makes the furniture amazing.

And yet it’s not the furniture that attracted my attention. The entire philosophy that the couple run their business on was so down to earth and unique that it amazed me. My parents and I had had a long day skiing, but in our never-ending search for a dining room table, we decided to check out (or, I suppose, they decided to check out) another furniture place. We walked in and we were greeted by Shackleton himself, who happened to be on the sales floor at the time. An hour later, we were in the middle of a full tour of the entire factory and Shackleton explained the philosophy that he and his wife share.

First, every piece of furniture is created by one craftseperson. The common practice in the furniture indsutry (in factories both big and small), is to do it assembly line style. There’s one person who does all of the saw work and one person who does all of the details work and another to do the assembly work, et cetera. At Shackleton they believe that a craftsperon should have a “relationship” with the piece of furniture they’re working on, so one person does it start to finish. They also do a lot of hand work as opposed to machine work.

Shackleton was also telling us about the community work that they do. He was explaining that when he was growing up in Ireland there were very few opportunities do something other than school work. He said he wasn’t getting a lot out of school and he needed to do something more manual. Today, they employ high school kids to do some basic stuff and give them an opportunity to work with wood and crafts.

Miranda Thomas runs her side of the operation the same way. She teaches kids to be potters and also employs great craftspeople to make pots and other clay items.

The funny part of this story is that we walked out of the factory without buying anything, but we will in the future. Their stuff is very expenive, as you might imagine. A simple rectangular coffee table is $2200. A large vase is $310!

But it’s almost worth it just to buy something because of their philosophy of work. Perhaps I didn’t do it justice when I described it, but I’ve never met two people who love their work so much. Whatever I do when it comes time for me to pick an occupation, I hope I can be as enthusiastic about my chosen work as they are about theirs.