Meet our team
Maria Klemperer-Johnson - Owner, Lead Instructor
Maria is the owner of Hammerstone: Carpentry for Women, head teacher, and lead carpenter on Hammerstone construction projects. Maria’s passion for building, in particular natural building and timber framing is apparent in her work and in her classes. She is a proponent of high performance construction using natural materials.
When not busy running Hammerstone, Maria spends enjoys time with her family skiing and sledding, swimming in the finger lakes, and maintaining a small homestead and cider orchard.
Christina Alario - Lead Carpenter, Lead Instructor
Christina joins our crew after working many years in the food service industry and was a restaurant manager prior to joining Hammerstone. Christina came to us as a student in our 2-Day Basic Carpentry Skills class in the summer of 2014. While she didn’t know a lot about using a circular saw or how to properly swing a hammer, she had a lot of enthusiasm for learning and jumped head first into figuring out the skills she needed to excel. After that first class, she was hooked. Christina participated in 3 more classes over the next year and a half. Starting in January of 2016, she was hired as a full-time carpenter. Now she fills her work days with measuring, sawing, and putting all the carpentry skills she learned into practice. In her free time, Christina enjoys biking, being outside, and swimming in the lake.
Sophie Vasseur - Apprentice Carpenter and TA
Sophie comes from France and moved to the US in June 2022. In 2023 she started at Hammerstone with a 2-Day Basic Carpentry Skills course, followed shortly by Build an Adirondack Chair in the spring. She was hooked, and joined a cohort of students to attend the entire Tiny House series. She was motivated to be able to learn about wooden construction because in France everything is made of masonry and therefore very different. At the end of the Tiny House course series, Sophie volunteered to help us wrap up construction on the tiny house. In the new year she joined the Hammerstone team as an apprentice carpenter.
On the hobby side, Sophie likes to spend as much time as possible with family and enjoy all the simple moments (games, walks, meals, etc.)
Kimberly Wiman - Social Media Maven
A physical therapist by profession, Kimberly has always enjoyed working with her hands. She started taking classes at Hammerstone after moving to the Trumansburg area in 2021.
Kimberly loves the carpentry process, starting with the imagination and analytical thinking of the design phase all the way through to the careful handwork and progressive stages of completing a build. Her first projects were gates, feeders, and shelters for her sheep and chickens. Her most recent project was a major home repair that involved re-sheathing and replacing windows across 20’ of her house.
When not making things, Kimberly enjoys reading, listening to and playing music, bikepacking, and swimming in the gorges.
You can see some of Kimberly’s projects here: instagram.com/mistihandmade
Em Moss - Lead Instructor, 2-Day Basic Carpentry Skills
A career in carpentry was always a dream job for Em. They admired people who could fix anything that broke and aspired to be able to remodel their own home one day. An unfulfilling desk job finally pushed them to make a career change and pursue an entry-level position at a local construction and remodeling company. After four years of working as a carpenter, Em is now the Construction Trades teacher at TST BOCES. Em continues to take on small carpentry projects over the summer and during school breaks.
Em became involved with Hammerstone in the summer of 2020 and is hooked on the sense of community and empowerment Hammerstone provides.
Outside of work, Em enjoys spending quality time with their partners and pets. They also enjoy taking walks to Stewart Park, hiking in Ithaca’s Gorges, kayaking on Cayuga Lake, camping and hanging out with friends.