The Future for a Knuckle Buster

Get yourself a website and go into business for yourself designing custom made furniture on CAD. Ship your selection of beautiful custom designs by email to your customers and then make the product of their choice when they pay you over the internet. Pretty soon you'll have a huge factory going and you'll be shipping product all over the state.

Now there's an answer outta the clear blue

But a good one none the less. If you seriously want to get into woodworking but do not have the equity to start your own business look into American Woodmark.

They are all over the US and from what I have heard a very good company to work for.

These guys manufacture office furniture:

http://www.gunlocke.com/

Last I knew they were using ProE for CAD. Aside from that I suggest google.

Really any industry or company that uses AutoCAD for their drawings is a possibility for employment. Your hands on experience with woodworking probably gives you the ability to become a draftsman or designer in that field more easily than other fields. Remember that a package like AutoCAD allows you to apply your process or equipment knowledge to whatever it is you are drawing. There are many jobs in fields like electrical design, machine design, product design, architecture etc. where all that is required is someone that knows the drawing package. They would be considered a draftsman not a designer and very valuable for their speed and computer skills.

When I was chief engineer for a custom machinery company, in addition to a permanent staff we used "technical temporaries" to handle workload peaks that might last a year or more. We successfully used beginners (reflected in the pay) as draftsmen in fields they had little knowledge in, if they reported to a designer or engineer for close oversight and they developed the ability to spread lead fast (oops I'm going back to my pre-computer days).

"spread lead fast"

Have not heard that in a long while!

My suggestion would be to start a 3d printing company. I have thought of this in the past. But you can get a pretty decent 3D printer pretty cheap now a days.

I know that our company would use the crap out of a service like this if it met two simple requirements.

1) Reliable, and fast

2) cheap!

If you did it on your own in your basement to start and kept your overhead low. You could make a fortune! These rapid prototype boys charge BANK for there services

Just my two-cents

bill12780

Hello Guest. If you want to work for an established company your most ardent supporter will be your local employment agency. Also contract (temporary) employment is an excellent way to gain varied experience and improve your talents.

If you wish to travel, your local employment agency often has contacts in industries out of state or out of the country. You can also look at www.monsterjobs.com and other employment sites for interesting jobs in interesting places.

I've been a contract engineer for many years and like you, I also learned AutoCAD and ultimately CATIA. Over these years I've had an amazing series of interesting jobs in aerospace, manufacturing and the medical device industry. Not only in the US, but in other countries as well.

Your knowlege is valuable. AutoCAD skills are in demand and employers are eager to talk to you. Get your resume' together and start a job campaign. You'll have fun and gain from the experience.