[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 128 (Saturday, August 4, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1752-E1753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  RECOGNITION OF TREDWAY CHILDRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EMPLOYEE

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. DANIEL E. LUNGREN

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Friday, August 3, 2007

  Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Madam Speaker, I want to take 
this opportunity to share with my colleagues a noteworthy article about 
the fine work of Mr. Tredway Childress, a senior restoration specialist 
and finisher at the House of Representatives, office of the Chief 
Administrative Officer.
  Mr. Childress recently led the restoration of the century-old 
mahogany rostrum in Room 311 of the Cannon House Office Building, home 
to the House Ways and Means Committee from 1908-1933 and the current 
home of the Committee on Homeland Security. This magnificent rostrum 
was originally the centerpiece for debates and deliberations that 
surrounded the 16th Amendment and the authorization of income taxes in 
1913. As a Member of the Committee on Homeland Security, I know 
firsthand that Tredway's handiwork in Room 311 has added dignity and a 
sense of history to our Committee deliberations. In addition, Mr. 
Childress has refinished numerous chairs and other furniture in the 
Capitol, including an original Cannon table 1907 vintage that I use in 
my Rayburn office.
  Tredway was recently profiled by Don Williams, his colleague and 
mentor at the Smithsonian's Museum Conservation Institute, in Woodshop 
News, an industry trade magazine. The article pays an important tribute 
to Mr. Childress. Mr. Williams notes that the restoration of the Cannon 
building rostrum to its previous grandeur could have only been 
accomplished by ``someone with Tredway's remarkable combination of 
talent, education, craft skill and commitment to preserving past 
treasures.''
  Madam Speaker, I commend Mr. Childress for his outstanding service to 
the House of Representatives over the past 7 years and thank him for 
his dedication to make the furniture in my office, and many others', 
look more capturing than its original state. His commitment to 
preserving important symbols of our Nation's history will be greatly 
appreciated for many years.

                   [From Woodshop News, August 2007]

              Giving the Nation's Capitol a Winning Finish


 Tredway Childress attributes his skills to the National Institute of 
                             Wood Finishing

                          (By Jennifer Hicks)

       Tredway Childress is the iconic example of a woodworker 
     meeting his maximum potential. Currently employed by the U.S. 
     Congress, he is a senior restoration specialist and finisher 
     for the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, D.C. He 
     is part of a team that oversees all finishing and is the 
     caretaker to over 2,000 historic items associated with 
     Congress and past leaders, and is also regarded as a 
     collaborator with the Smithsonian Institution at the U.S. 
     Capitol.
       A woodworker and furniture maker in earlier years, 
     Childress, 62, said he reached a point where he wanted to 
     perfect his restoration skills, particularly wood finishing.
       ``I have always worked with furniture; built, sold and 
     finished it. The finishing part was always the hardest--the 
     more I did it the more I didn't understand it,'' said 
     Childress.
       In 1998 he moved to the Midwest for the sole purpose of 
     attending the National Institute of Wood Finishing at Dakota 
     County Technical College in Rosemount, Minn. To this day 
     Childress credits instructor Mitchell Kohanek, a wood 
     finisher of nearly 30 years, for giving him the knowledge he 
     needed to become a professional finisher. He is now confident 
     he is capable of getting any job he wants in the field.
       Kohanek offers short-term workshops, but his nine-month 
     diploma program is the only certified wood finishing 
     education program in the United States. It teaches students 
     about wood technology; selection and application of finishes; 
     application of dyes, stains, glazes and toners; color 
     matching; spray finishing; basic and advanced finishing; spot 
     repair of wood, leather, and vinyl, and last but not least, 
     refinishing and restoration. Childress raves about how the 
     program taught him the gamut of problem-solving techniques, 
     such as how to deal with ``orange peel'' results and to 
     prevent them from happening in the first place.
       A year after Childress graduated in 1998, Kohanek informed 
     him that the Capitol was looking for a finisher to hire onto 
     their crew of tradesmen. After a year's background screening, 
     Childress was hired and has been there ever since.
       Recently, he was the lead wood finisher during the 
     restoration of a historic Cannon Building flame mahogany 
     rostrum, which housed the Ways and Means Committee as early 
     as 1907. The original drafts for the Constitution's 16th 
     Amendment and laws enacting the income tax were almost 
     certainly drafted at this rostrum. It doesn't get much 
     more historic than that.
       This project allowed Childress to collaborate with Don 
     Williams, senior furniture conservator of the Smithsonian's 
     Museum Conservation Institute and another of his mentors. The 
     two first met during one of Williams' frequent visits to 
     Dakota where

[[Page E1753]]

     Williams teaches chemistry-intense courses in restoration and 
     finishing with longtime friend and colleague Kohanek.
       Childress returns to Dakota almost every summer for 
     additional advance course work, and for years he and Williams 
     had been looking for just the right in-depth project to blend 
     their skills and experiences.
       ``The reclamation of the Cannon 311 rostrum's previous 
     grandeur could have only been accomplished by someone with 
     Tredway's remarkable combination of talent, education, craft 
     skill and commitment to preserving past treasures,'' Williams 
     said. ``There aren't many of us around who can carefully 
     remove a disfiguring top coat and leave behind the beautiful 
     old shellac finish underneath, then blend it all back in with 
     a French polish that almost literally glows in the dark 
     without looking cheesy. But Tredway did it.''
       His work on Capitol Hill also includes refinishing all 
     chairs on the floor of the House of Representatives. On this 
     project, Childress and his crew took off the existing coating 
     and brought it back to its original shellac. They also 
     decided to replace the gold painted molding with gilded 
     molding, as had been done originally.
       ``Going through Mitch's school, I really had the knowledge 
     and know how to do what needed to be done instead of just 
     looking at it and saying, `Let's put another coat on it,' '' 
     Childress said. ``By studying and knowing the chemistry 
     behind what needed to be done and understanding what you 
     could and could not do, and making the chemistry work in our 
     favor instead of stripping it . . . you just don't get out of 
     a weekend class.
       Childress is one of Kohanek's many students who went into 
     restoration and conservation. Other graduates have found ways 
     to make a living from finishing new wood or by becoming 
     furniture service technicians who repair wood on location.
       ``There are so many opportunities for custom wood finishers 
     because wood finishing is still to this day considered a 
     mystic trade when it really is a blend of art and science,'' 
     said Kohanek. ``Once one understands how those two facets 
     work together, you can use inexpensive wood and create an 
     expensive look, or make expensive wood look even more 
     beautiful. You also know how to repair and restore it.''
       Kohanek emphasizes that his certification program makes 
     graduates valued wood finishing employees off the bat, and 
     enables them to go immediately into their own business if 
     they choose that direction. Like Childress, the best 
     graduates of the NIWF are setting the standards of what 
     should be expected of a wood finisher as they apply to any 
     wood finishing facility, he concluded.

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