Nik Meller CF ’96

Directly after high school in Germany and before coming to NBSS, I completed a three-year Furniture Maker Apprenticeship and a one-year Antique Furniture Restoration Internship in Munich, Germany. After the programs in Germany, I was looking at furniture and industrial design programs in the US, but I was not intimidated by the schools I visited, and I was looking for a real challenge.

I wrote to the editor of Fine Woodworking Magazine who suggested I immediately look at NBSS. When I visited NBSS, I was absolutely terrified. I was a German-trained furniture maker and was supposed to be at the top of my game. Yet I had no clue how to build the styles of furniture I was seeing! It was immediately clear that I had found my challenge and had to attend the NBSS Cabinet & Furniture Making program.

After graduating from NBSS, I moved to Los Angeles where I was hired by Bau Furniture as a Board Drafter for Period Residential Furniture and started taking AutoCAD and business classes at night. I was offered a position at Beverly Furniture as a Prototype Maker and, as my CAD skills improved, I was moved into the engineering department. There I worked on developing the furniture for Starwood “W” Hotels in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago as well as several Las Vegas hotels. I was then offered a position as Design Associate at J. Robert Scott focusing on very high end furniture. The following year I was promoted to Manager of Product Engineering, where for several years I had the good fortune of developing furniture, soft goods, accessories and lighting for their celebrity clientele.

In 2005, I started my own company, NIKMEL, where we develop furniture for furniture manufacturers, interior designers, showrooms and other furniture designers. In 2008, we introduced the Nik Meller Collection, a line of crystal glass award designs available worldwide.

It goes without saying that without the great people I met and the help and guidance I received along the way, none of this could have happened. NBSS is an integral part in my story. The time there taught me that if I do something well, the rest will fall into place.

Completing the Cabinet & Furniture Making program is the difference between knowing what I was doing and not knowing what I was doing. If I did it all over again, I would do it the same way. I would not be where I am today had I not attended NBSS. There is no doubt in my mind. It made all the difference.