SYRACUSE, NY - Scholarships to support  the next generation of American Craftsmen in Wood have been awarded by Oneida Air Systems. The manufacturer of dust collection systems named the first two winners of the Oneida Air Systems Future Craftsmen scholarship.

Meredith Hart, a woodworking student at North Bennet Street School in Boston, who will graduate in June, the first to be named. Hart is a talented furniture maker. Samples of her work can be seen in the slideshow below and at www.meredithhart.weebly.com.

Oneida Air Systems’ second winner is Will Barstow, a junior in Furniture Design in the School for American Crafts at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. The program provides compressive technical background in contemporary woodworking. RIT focuses on technical expertise, from use and maintenance of hand tools, proceeding on to more advanced tools including CNC machining, and topics in construction and design.

Oneida Air Systems, which designs and manufactures industrial grade cyclonic dust collection systems and components in the United States, says it hopes to increase the number of woodworking scholarships to five next year.