We are Eric and Mary Jaeger, the proud owners of Jaegers Fine Woodworking, LLC.  
We have been in business since October 2016.  We created Wisakon Woods after purchasing "Inee's Boards" in the fall of 2016. Our first set of Christmas orders came in December 2016 and mostly from Inee's customers.  Since then however we have continued to expand our product line and work hard for all of our existing and new customers.  We are blessed with returning customers from all our years in business!

A lot has changed over the past five years...  

Eric is officially retired from the Army since November 2020.  He is a veteran of the Iraq War, multiple deployments, and served since 1990.   After he graduated high school and joined the Army, yet he never stopped creating unique gifts with his woodworking talents.  
 
Eric learned woodworking at a very young age from his father.  Herwig “Jack” Jaeger emigrated from Germany to the United States at the age of 18 where he had been an apprentice in the woodworking trade.  After settling with the family in Arkansas, he opened Jaeger’s Fine Woodworking, handcrafting custom cabinets and furniture.  Eric started sweeping, sanding, straightening nails and maintaining the tools.  Eventually he was entrusted to build drawers and learning his father’s craft.  His father was a quintessential perfectionist and Eric inherited that trait!  Jack was so excited to know that Eric was coming back to Leslie to continuing the woodworking tradition once he retired in 2020.  Jack helped provide oversite of the shop renovation but in March 2020 his health took a turn for the worse;  He had a stroke that he didn't come back from.  In April 2020, Herwig "Jack" Jaeger went to his eternal home.  It was bittersweet knowing that we were moving back home to Leslie to be closer to family, and Jack isn't here... physically.  We do have a visiting bird that seems to come and sit on the wire outside the shop, giving us an earful on a regular basis... we figure it's Jack's way of keeping up in check!
 
Mary is retired from the Army since December 2012 after serving 23 years in the regular Army, Army Reserve and the Army National Guard.  She is a veteran of the Gulf War and was mobilized as a reservist to Washington D.C. in support of the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars.  After Mary retired she took on the more difficult task of being an Army Wife!  Eric and his two girls asked her to be a part of their lives and she accepted.  As Eric continued on active duty, Mary worked as a contractor with Survivor Outreach Services, serving Families of the Fallen and Military One Source serving military members and their families from all branches of service.  She also pursued her Masters Degree in Human Resource Training and Development and received her MBA.. 
 
Mary’s dream has always been to own her own business and travel.  Since her military service allowed her to retire at such a young age, it seemed to be the right time.  For Mary, this venture was truly a leap of faith!  Being creative and having business savvy was one thing, but having the skill and background in woodworking was another!  Mary trained with Inee and Diane, from Inee's Boards for several weeks in their shop to learn the techniques they used to master their craft.  We truly wanted to ensure we could still serve the existing customers with the products they have come to love!  With these two great trainers, the skills were quickly learned, absorbed and knowledge was passed on to Mary and Eric. 
 
Mary’s parent’s always told her she could do anything she set her mind to… with hard work, perseverance and a lot of love along the way… it is true!  Do what you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life!
 
Eric and Mary have two beautiful girls, Justice who is currently serving in the United States Air Force and Ocean who is currently working towards her dream of becoming a chef.  They also have a dog named Battle Buddy who is the real boss in the shop!