Auto Development Center associate Grant Foreman started with a productive workout and discovered a whole new world in timbersports!
Grant Foreman wields an axe, sweat pouring from his brow.
With each swing, the lumber fractures, splitting and tumbling to the ground. And it fills this principal engineer with peace and satisfaction.
Outside of his work at the North American Auto Development Center (ADC), Foreman pursues his love of timbersports, which consists of various woodsman or wood-chopping competitions. He trains early in the mornings, late at night—whenever he can carve out the time.
Diving in
Already someone who loved sports, Foreman found this wood-chopping calling after realizing his duties as a father were precluding him playing basketball and softball. The closest he could get was coaching his son’s teams.
And his age wasn’t helping matters.
“Playing basketball was becoming more of a risk for injury than a benefit for my health,” he said, half-joking.
But he remained determined to stay in shape, leading him to begin splitting wood for the family’s wood stove.
“I call it a ‘productive workout,’” he said. “I’m actually getting something done while staying in shape. It’s hard for me to run and go nowhere or cycle and go nowhere. But I enjoy being out in the woods, splitting wood, cutting wood, and running chainsaws.”
Soon, people began to make him aware of the Paul Bunyan Show, put on by the Ohio Forestry Association, where he received his first taste of timbersports.
And that was all it took.
A ‘natural’ fit
Before long, Foreman and his girlfriend visited the Lumberjack World Championship, where he was inspired to begin training.
“I kind of got hooked,” he admitted, revealing he met people who connected him to other shows. He wasn’t the only one who felt the calling; his girlfriend began to compete too.
Even while off the clock, his engineering mind remained busy as ever in this new endeavor.
“Engineering definitely prepares you for the problem solving and analysis needed to both maintain equipment and develop timbersports skills,” he said. “Breaking down events, experimenting with axe grinds, chain sharpening, saw porting, etc. are all things I enjoy and require the same set of basic skills a test engineer learns at Honda.
“We have also started hosting a small event in Ohio and the project management skills and leadership I have developed at Honda carry directly over in the preparation,” he added.
And that’s not the only way his life at Honda has spilled into this other world.
A history with Honda
“Timbersports is a tough thing to break into, but we were able to do so thanks to some people we met,” he said of being accepted into that community. “Now my mission is to not exclude people; we reach out to people in my situation for training or equipment or whatever the need may be.”
He knows that’s a massive part of Honda’s philosophy: respect for the individual. And that hasn’t simply rubbed off on him only from 20 years at the company as a full-time associate. It has been with him since he was 4 years old, when his father started at the manufacturing plant as a production associate in 1982.
“He gradually worked his way to team leader, coordinator, and finally landed in the PED chassis department where he took on roles that require a college degree at most companies,” Foreman recalled of his dad. “Honda’s commitment to promote associates from within based on their skill level is what allowed him to be successful. We all wear the same uniform and deserve equal respect within our company.”
Continuous improvement. Respect for the individual. Teamwork. They lived within his father at Honda and at home. Today they live within him and he hopes to instill them in his children. And they live on in his timbersports activities with every swing and smile.
“The initial draw to timbersports is the challenge, but once you get beyond that, what has kept us interested is the people we meet and the relationships we build,” he said.
Foreman’s axe hits the log precisely. It fractures. But this principal engineer grows stronger.
And for that, we all benefit.
