Founder and CEO Phil Cohen started working with wood in 1975 in a neighbor’s barn, building porch swings from walnut, cherry, and cedar. In 1976, he and his wife Gina turned half of their tiny 24’ x 24’ house into a shop and began making birdhouses, baby cradles, and toy wooden trucks. In 1982 he met a master cabinetmaker who offered to mentor him. He stepped out in faith and purchased his first business license. Today, Phil no longer transforms wood into beautiful things but loves to help men and women transform their lives by helping them find great career paths and bettering their family lives Read more about Phil’s past and the history of the company here.

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Gina’s greatest pride and joy is her family – nine children and eleven grandchildren! She has a double bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Education, but the equivalent of a few doctorates in motherhood. Besides her family, she enjoys health, fitness, and music. She helped Phil found the company, and in the very early days painted designs on the wooden trucks that Phil built and created quilts for the baby cribs. She personifies quiet strength and beauty, and everyone who knows her finds tremendous depth of character and humility.

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The resident tech expert of Cohen and the oldest of Phil and Gina’s nine children, Noah embraces the dynamic challenges of being an owner of the company. Self-taught and motivated by his love for technology, he’ll take on any project and figure it out. Time with his wife and two beautiful daughters are the highlight of his day and vacations away on tropical beaches restore his energy. Fitness and health are also a top priority. He travels often to visit clients or vendors and along the way, enjoys craft beers in microbreweries from different cultures and countries. Noah started working in the shop as soon as he was old enough to sort screws and fill glue bottles and is familiar with nearly every facet of the industry. He’s a quiet, solid pillar in the company, developing and maintaining long term relationships with clients and vendors. Noah is deeply committed and loyal, whether to his childhood friends, family, or professional relationships.

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If you’re hanging out with Ben, you’d better hang on tight. When he retells the stories of his thrilling adventures—which are all true—he is bursting with excitement. You can’t mistake his animated personality from the rest of the family although he has been mistaken for Ben Cohen from Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream before. Ben is all about relationships, which is why he’s an integral part of the Cohen business development team. He finds fulfillment in win-win solutions for clients, vendors, and employees. His entrepreneurial mind extends outside the company to a piece of farmland he recently purchased and began developing. He and his wife are building a home on the property. Currently they raise cattle and Ben tends them with his mini-me one-year-old son.

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Lover of adventure, thrilling experiences, and the culinary arts, Naomi’s interests are very broad. She’s serious and focused at work but finds rejuvenation in traveling to new places and experiencing other cultures. From science to mountain biking and fitness competitions, she invests her energy to learn well. When in high school, she won 1st Place: ACE International Engineering Competition two years in a row for designing and building remote controlled cars from scratch. She’s a brilliant engineer, not only leading Cohen’s engineering team through the growth and development of the company but staying ahead with cutting edge industry practices. She has a key role in Cohen’s Direct-to-Vendor relationship model, working directly with clients, architects, and designers to provide customized designs and catalogs for the standardization process. One of her favorite activities is spending time with her two sweet nieces and nine nephews.

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Nate logs more than 150 travel days each year, visiting clients and job sites. He makes sure every job is done with excellence. As Senior Project Manager for Cohen, he leads his team and develops precision tracking tools for the company. Even though he’s the eighth of nine children, he never let the “little kid” status stop him from taking charge. He works with unstoppable tenacity. When his older brothers scheduled 4:30 AM to start work, he was the self-disciplined kid who woke himself up and banged on their doors to get them out of bed. In high school, he won 1st Place: ACE International Woodworking Competition three years in a row. When he was 19 years old, he built magnificent chess tables for the Saint Louis Chess Club, using White Oak, refined Walnut, Birdseye Maple and exotic Brazilian Ebony. The annual U.S. Chess Championships are hosted on these exquisite tables. The St. Louis Cardinals added two of his chess tables to the players’ clubhouse, which has become a popular spot among the Cardinals players. As busy as Nate is, he also finds time to flip houses on the side and spend quality time with his eleven nieces and nephews. Nate pushes for perfection in every aspect of his life, whether in physical fitness, personal development, or managing multiple projects.

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Robb oversees purchasing and material delivery schedules for all Cohen projects. He’s disciplined and tenacious at his job. His greatest accomplishment was convincing his wife to marry him. He was homeschooled as a child and today has two children, who are being homeschooled. A family guy at heart and an outdoor enthusiast, he has coached his daughter’s soccer team for the past 5 years. A dream vacation would be mountain biking at Whistler in Canada. The weirdest thing Robb has ever eaten is bulut, which is a partially developed duck egg embryo, common in Philippines.

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Justin takes his 3 year old nephew and his other family members out to participate in mud racing competitions on the weekends. He’s been with the company for many years. As the plant manager, he cares about his team yet everyone knows Justin says how it is and the job had better be done right. Yes he’s serious, and he means business. His motivation is driven by his desire to add value and influence others in the workplace, including employees and clients. Adapt and Overcome is his motto and he does it daily. He possesses some of the same abilities his Australian Shepherd has – the smarts and the ability to bring people together.

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Joe loves his job as a Project Manager at Cohen. He’s been in the woodworking industry for thirty years, and worked as a cabinet installer for twenty-five of those years. Earlier in his life, known as “Gilly”, he had signed a contract to play professional baseball but he tore his knee and his career path changed. Outside of work, he spends a lot of time on the lake fishing with his wife, daughter, and grandson. He’s also a big fan of college football.

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All the hilarious stories you’ve heard about Alex are probably true. He has never met a stranger and his excitement is contagious and bigger than life. He is a project manager but has worked in nearly every department at Cohen. He loves golf and plays in tournaments. Since childhood, he has been a walking, human calculator, entering and winning math competitions. If the Kansas City Chiefs needed only one fan, they’d have it in Alex. Above all, his three children and three grandchildren are his greatest pride and joy. Grateful for every day and thankful for his relationships with his family, he lives every moment to the fullest, which means quite a few wild adventures along the way.

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Main Plant:

9 Industrial Drive
St. James, Missouri 65559

Branch Office:

8700 Monrovia, Suite 310
Lenexa, Kansas 66215

Phone: 573.265.7070 / fax 573.265.7050

Email: info@cohenwoodworking.com