Heavy/YouTube/HGTV "Home Town" stars Ben and Erin Napier
Ben and Erin Napier have a huge fan base of HGTV viewers who love their show, “Home Town,” and everything they create, from candles to butcher blocks to best-selling books. But hiring qualified staff to help them keep their lifestyle empire going has proven challenging.
While in High Point, North Carolina, to launch new pieces in their furniture line, the Napiers addressed how the lack of trade workers has impacted their business, with Ben revealing that they’re “really struggling to find people to work.” The couple even visited with a local high school woodworking class on October 18, 2023, encouraging them to consider the craft as a career path.
Here’s what you need to know:
Ben & Erin Napier Meet With High School Woodworking Class
While in town for the fall High Point Furniture Market, Ben showcased his skills for a group of students from High Point Central High School who are enrolled in a woodworking class there. In a temporary, outdoor workshop, he demonstrated how his company’s cutting boards are made. He told Guildford County Schools TV (GCSTV) that it was the very first thing he ever sold as a woodworker.
Ben tried to forge a connection with the teens, most of whom had never seen an episode of “Home Town,” by recalling his own high school days in North Carolina and teaching them tricks of his trade.
“This is an incredible thing that Guilford County Schools are doing, and High Point Central, and I hope that they do more of this,” he told local news station FOX8, emphasizing the need for more young people to get into trade work.
He explained, “We need that. We need woodworkers. We need plumbers. We are currently, on our show, you know, we renovate — we’ve done over 100 houses — and we are really struggling to find people to work.”
Kenneth Dean, the woodworking class instructor who brought his students to meet Ben, told FOX8 his goal is “to get the kids able to come out of high school with some type of skill, some kind of trade. Everybody’s not going to a four-year college. A lot of our kids like to work with their hands.”
Ben told GSCTV he hopes the students who attended see woodworking as a viable option for them in the future. “We like to romanticize things and say, ‘Oh, you know, as long as you do what you love’… but at the end of the day, you gotta put bread on the table and this is a way you can do it.”
FOX8 also shared footage of Erin addressing the students who attended Ben’s workshop.
“It is super cool that your high school has a woodworking class because 99 percent of high schools in America have eliminated woodworking to the detriment of the kids who go to school there,” she said.
Ben and Erin posed for photos with the class and even gave Dean one of their popular signs with one of Ben’s favorite phrases, “Measure once, cuss twice.”
Ben Napier Has Turned His Passion for Woodworking Into His Career
Ben has turned his love of woodworking into his profession, from helping with renovations on “Home Town” to selling pieces made at his woodworking shop, which is now a popular tourist attraction in their hometown of Laurel, Mississippi.
In 2022, the couple opened Scottsman Manufacturing, a plant devoted to making “the highest quality cutting boards and butcher blocks in America.” The new company added 85 jobs to the local economy, according to WDAM.
The plant is part of revitalization efforts in Laurel by the Napiers and their college friends who all moved back to the area after school. Their company web site says, “While manufacturing is machine-led, it’s the skilled hands and minds of the team that engineer the process to perfection.”
In August, Ben shared a behind-the-scenes Instagram video from the plant, which he also narrated, to emphasize the importance of supporting American-made, hand-crafted goods.
“At Scotsman Manufacturing, we know the importance of building community and the importance of building things together with our community,” he said in the video. “We know that small towns are made by the things made in small towns. At Scotsman Manufacturing, we know that American-made matters.”
According to MovieGuide, Ben shared in 2022 that even as a kid, he had high hopes he could one day help small towns survive.
“While I was in high school in Reidsville, North Carolina, my family would drive through furniture factory towns on our way to the mountains,” he said. “The memory of seeing shuttered plants and hearing how the loss of a major employer had decimated families made a lasting impression on me that’s why Erin and I have focused our lives on building up our hometown of Laurel, Mississippi.”
Scottman Manufacturing currently has entry-level openings at its Mississippi plant, including for a Machine Operator and a Sander & Finisher.