With 47 years of woodworking experience under his belt, Jack Hamilton decided it was time to showcase his talents. In 2006, he started his home-based business – Scorpionjacks Exotic Wood Products and Custom Laser Engraving.The name is a good fit. Born in the month of November, Hamilton is a Scorpio. Yoyos, kaleidoscopes, wine corks, mirrors, cork screws and darts made out of deer antlers, and bowls are a few of his woodworking and etching products. Hamilton said his pens are the most popular item. They come in handy when he is at his other job.Hamilton has been an employee at Phil Long Ford and Kia of Motor City for two years. “This originally was to actually subsidize the income that I was making from car sales,” he said. With every car he sells, Hamilton presents the new owner with a personalized, handcrafted pen for his customer.”The hardest part of owning a business is the marketing,” he said. “To build a customer base you’ve got to get set up with enough product to do a display somewhere that can be viewed.” This is where his Web site comes in, he said. “The awareness is huge.”Hamilton said the most rewarding aspect of owning a business is the smile he gets when someone is pleased with one of his products. “I’ve given away so many ink pens. I mean, yeah, it comes out of my pocket, but the reward is the smile from the customers.”Recently, Hamilton participated in an auction to benefit a co-worker’s daughter, who has breast cancer. He donated handcrafted pink ivory pens and a case adorned with the signature pink ribbon, which he dubbed “Passionately for Pink.” Hamilton was happy to help. “Things of that nature. That’s very rewarding. It has meaning,” he said.Hamilton was born at James Connelly Air force Base in Waco, Texas. Because his father was in the U.S. Air Force, Hamilton said he lived in Florida, Hawaii and New Hampshire while growing up.He said his father taught him the woodworking trade. Hamilton’s earliest creation was a model airplane that he flew when he was 6 years old. When he was 8 years old, he competed in the national and junior competition for the Aircraft Modelers Association. Hamilton said he and his younger brother took first and second place in the competition. “It was a lot of fun,” he said.In1969, Hamilton joined the military and served for 12 and a half years. He moved to North Dakota in 1983, where he worked as a Department of Defense civilian at Minot Air Force Base. Hamilton, his wife Colynn and their five children settled in Minot, N.D., for 23 years, with a brief stay in Okinawa, Japan, during that time.Hamilton and his wife moved to Falcon in 2005. Colynn currently works for the government and Hamilton’s father-in-law lives with them. “We came back here and this place is just unreal,” Hamilton said of Falcon. “We had to get reacquainted with how much the area has changed.”Hamilton said Falcon is the place for them. “We’re locked. We may go overseas with the government, but we would always have our home here.”He said his children and eight grandchildren now live as close as Colorado Springs and as far as Minneapolis and Utah.In his spare time, Hamilton enjoys golf. He was recently one of two winners in the Mercedes-Benz golf tournament at Kissing Camels in Colorado Springs. With his win, he secured a spot in the Mercedes-Benz Classic national finals, which will be played in Hawaii Jan. 7 – 12. At the tournament, Hamilton will compete against 700 golfers for a trip to the international tournament in Stuttgart, Germany.Hamilton said he may have come full circle. Stuttgart is where he learned to play golf – in 1974.Building and teaching others to operate radio control aircraft are also his pastimes. He taught the current Canadian champion, Chad Northeast, to fly.”I live a pretty diversified life,” Hamilton said. “I don’t stay still for anything.”More on Jack HamiltonHow do you see yourself in five years?Hopefully, this business will be self-sustaining; and (I’ll be) retired, doing it full-time.Whom do you admire?My father-in-law. He was an engineer on every space shuttle there is. He was an engineer with Morton Thiokol out of Utah.What is one of your favorite memories?Getting married to my wife.What do you think Falcon will look like in 25 years?Falcon’s going to keep increasing – the community, the quality of people that live out here. What can I say? It’s a very, very enjoyable community – quiet, no crime, the golf course and swimming pools. You name it; we’ve got it all out here. It’s a community within a community.
