Matthew Wrage

Owner

Matthew grew up working on his family's farm in Iowa. After graduating high school he attended Wartburg College and graduated with a double major in Chemistry and Engineering.

Matthew began his career in the corporate world in 2007 as a chemical engineer moving to Memphis in 2010. After 8 years living in the corporate world, Matthew began to feel that there could be more to life than the money and benefits that had sold him on this lifestyle.  He began to look for a way out. He explored many options including his farming roots, but it just didn't seem to fulfill him. Then one day, while traveling home from a business trip, he saw an ad in an inflight magazine about turning trees into lumber. He was fascinated by this concept and began researching, exploring everything he could about his newly found obsession.  He discovered a very disturbing fact: Millions of trees are thrown in the landfill every year. Upon this discovery, Matthew resolved to save those trees and mill them into lumber, and seed was planted in his mind.

After reading and researching for months, he bought his first sawmill in 2012 and the seed of CityWood began to grow.  Working with local tree services, he started to mill logs into lumber. That passion for saving logs for a longer lasting purpose, transitioned into a further passion of building pieces of furniture that will be both beautiful and last for generations to come. This passion for wood working grew into the current mission of CityWood which is to create beautiful pieces of furniture from trees that were destined for less.

Matthew also has found a passion for teaching others the art of woodworking. He has the great gift of a talented staff of artists, designers, and craftsmen from varying backgrounds whom he teaches but learns from them as well.