Matt Shorrock, owner of American Figure Milling, uses his urban lumber sawmill to cut a felled tree log which he will transform into either furniture, flooring, paneling, or a variety of other wood products. (Courtesy / HANDOUT)

Virginia Beach — Matt Shorrock felt a sense of calm when he was tasked to build wooden bunk beds for his fellow Navy SEAL team members during a tour in Afghanistan.

And after a brain hemorrhage during a sky dive prematurely ended his 13 year military career — and lifelong dream — Shorrock decided to incorporate woodworking into his next journey.

“It helped me relax and kind of get in that meditative mind slow state,” Shorrock said. “I also had really fallen in love with milling lumber, which was a new concept to me.”

He opened his business, American Figure Milling, in January 2020. The name references the unique markings and patterns that appear on the surface of the wood he salvages.

His Virginia Beach shop contains a vacuum kiln — which dries and seasons lumber in one to two weeks — and the mobile mill is set up in the yard.

Shorrock said he used to buy wood from a local lumberyard, but when he was introduced to milling, it all took root.

He was elated when his first milled log lasted three years and yielded a fence, a couple of paddleboards, and tables.

“My mind was blown also at how beautiful it was once you open up the log,” he said. “I really believed in it, and I just think it’s such an overlooked resource.”

A transplant to Hampton Roads from Long Island, Shorrock saw the vastness of the urban forest — or the trees in a city. They regularly are taken down to make way for development and most are burned, chipped for mulch or turned into firewood.

The logs, Shorrock said, are in abundance and there is no way he can use them all.

“It’s a shame because they get wasted,” he said. “If I let them sit in my yard for too long they start to rot and if I accumulate too many then I can’t move things around.”

Shorrock said there are more than one million trees in Virginia Beach’s urban forest, including oak, ash, walnut and maple — all really valuable wood.

“We spend a lot of money to bring them in from other parts of the country instead of just sourcing them from really what becomes biomass waste,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense, and it just takes a company to put the effort and investment in to utilize this resource that we have at our fingertips, but it’s just being wasted right now.”

Shorrock isn’t letting the felled trees he gets his hands on go to waste.

“I’m able to mill logs that maybe someone cleared from their yard when they’re building a house and I can turn around, dry the lumber in a short amount of time and build a countertop or table for them,” he said.

He has traveled all over the region with his saw mill and is currently milling 20 pine trees in Manteo, N.C., for a new homeowner.

Jesse Wykle said that after he saw the “absolute beautiful custom shelves” Shorrock built for his home, he hired him to build a red oak table to go on top of a bourbon barrel at his business.

Wykle, owner of Aloha Snacks in Virginia Beach, said he wanted a stand-up communal table for the porch area, and Shorrock absolutely nailed it.

“People love the look; how rustic and clean cut it is,” Wykle said. “He’s very intuitive and creative. He brings more than just woodworking to the table. He brings incredible insight into what folks are looking for and people are so excited to see his work.”

The pandemic hasn’t slowed his business down at all — in fact, Shorrock said he would like to hire someone to help with his endeavor. He has seen the price of lumber skyrocket as the supply chain broke down due to COVID-19 and the California wildfires.

Now his dreams are set on growing his business to one day include his own lumberyard with plenty of inventory on site.

“It just means so much to me to be fortunate enough to be able to have the time and the equipment to let me break open these logs and offer them to people,” he said.

Sandra J. Pennecke, 757-652-5836, sandra.pennecke@insidebiz.com

Matt Shorrock, owner of American Figure Milling in Virginia Beach, builds a paddleboard out of lumber from a felled tree. (Courtesy / HANDOUT)

Matt Shorrock, pictured at Lee Beach in Bay Colony in spring of 2020, is overshadowed by a wooden paddleboard - built for his pleasure - from locally milled wood. (Courtesy / HANDOUT)