A few years ago, when I was running a small shop selling vintage hardware and furniture, my first client was a fellow employee at a local hardware store. He didn't like the sound of my "toy shop" name

, but I didn't let him bother me. He was so impressed with my work that he signed up to be my next customer.

That same year, a friend of mine recommended I contact Mr. Fuchs. I knew he liked me and had worked for him for years, but I'd never heard of him until then. I was floored. So was he. I met him in a woodshop, and we started talking about his work. The next week, he brought me a small box of his vintage equipment for testing. He took me out into the woods where he would spend hours peeling paint, building circuits, and welding parts together. The more he worked, the more impressed I was with the pieces. I thought it was crazy what he was doing; he was simply an incredible craftsman.

In my last year of school, I had a chance meeting with Mr. Fuchs at a hardware store. He was wearing a very short white coat, black leather gloves, and a bright red cowboy hat. He approached me with a smile and a serious look on his face. He told me that he had been working on his "Toys For The Future" program for the past seven years, and he wanted to take me on as a consultant and help me bring my ideas to life. He wanted me to show him how to build the prototype he had in mind, and he wanted to show me how to show it to customers. As a result, I became his consultant for six months, to make sure the project worked. When he finished, he took my kit and told me to give it a test run. That's when I knew for