Cerritos College

Mike Jones
Full-Time Faculty

Office Hours Monday & Wednesday, 12:00 - 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, 5:00 - 6:00 p.m. Contact Information Phone: (562) 860-2451 x2988 Fax: (562) 467-5018 E-mail: mjones@cerritos.edu

Although he is the son of a LA-area cabinetmaker, woodworking is actually Mike’s third career. After graduating from UCI with a bachelor’s degree in Math, he was a professional photographer for many years. He worked nearly four years with Charles and Ray Eames and also taught photography at Orange Coast College. After his photography career, he went into computer systems work and spent many more years supporting software. His work at this time was primarily in healthcare systems, with an emphasis on training and documentation.

Throughout that time, Mike worked with wood whenever he could. After a mid-1990’s move to Washington, DC, he joined the Woodworkers Club in Vienna, Virginia. The Club was like a gym for woodworkers—a membership fee gave them access to all the equipment they could use and also provided an opportunity to work around inspirational people. Mike started designing and building in earnest there and later in the Rockville, MD club. When he relocated from Washington to Orange County in 2000, he moved to the Woodworkers Club in Santa Ana, and worked out of that shop until it closed in 2002.

Mike joined the Woodworking program at Cerritos in 2001 as a student in Bob Colgan’s Hand Tools class, and then spent a year in a staff position working on the department’s CNC grant. When the grant ended in 2002, he took an adjunct faculty position and started teaching the Night Stand, Coffee Table, and Intro to Woodworking classes. In 2004, he was hired along with Carl Stammerjohn as a full-time faculty member. He now also teaches Solid Surface Fabrication, Face Frame Cabinetmaking, and Cabinet Vision, the computer-based cabinet design program. His goal at Cerritos is to bring automated CNC cabinetmaking processes to life, and to increase student access to these phenomenal tools.

Except for a six-year hiatus in Washington, Mike has lived in Laguna Beach since the late 1960’s. He has a wonderful wife, Kathy, two beautiful daughters, a fabulous granddaughter, and a home that cost less than his last car. In his off-hours, he works out of his small Laguna Beach shop as a frame maker for Kathy, framing more than fifty of her oil paintings each year.

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