Known as 14 Wing Greenwood’s “Department of Woodworking,” Master Warrant Officer Ed Delorme is the talent behind the wood-crafted wings, crests, plaques and other memorabilia that adds the finishing touch to many special military occasions.
Just don’t ask to see his own display for a 28-year collection of commemorative and challenge coins: they’re currently layered in a jar, pretty much in the order they were collected, set on a shelf in his woodshop.
“I’ll build my own,” he says. “The guys have said they’d build me one out of cereal boxes and crayons!”
Delorme expects to release from the Canadian Armed Forces in 2026, but the hobby he’s developed over more recent years will stay just that.
“I’ll take an electrical course, then manage my own hours. I want the woodworking to stay as a hobby.”
The electrical course will take him back to his roots, a vocational program he took from Grade 9 on that covered the basics in a number of hands-on skills, including plumbing, electrical and carpentry.
At 16, having graduated from his Cadet squadron early, he initially joined the Canadian Armed Forces’ Winnipeg Rifles as an army infantry Reservist, before transferring to the Regular Force. At 18, he was in Bosnia on a peacekeeping tour. At 24, during a four-year posting with the 2 Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry, he was in Afghanistan with Task Force 306.
“We were there eight months. We did not live on base; I’ll keep it vague. You learn lots. You learn your character.”
In 2007, back in Shilo, Delorme thought, “that’s enough of that,” and put in the paperwork to change elements and trades: he became a Royal Canadian Air Force airborne electronic sensor operator, managing electronics systems in flight.
“It was a steep learning curve – one day shoveling dirt out of a hole to learning radar theory,” he says. He was on the last course for the CP140 Aurora Block I, and has since advanced through to today’s Block IV qualifications: “from full analog to full digital.”
Arriving in Greenwood in 2018, Delorme has served in various roles with 405 (Long Range Patrol) Squadron and, more recently, at 415 (Long Range Patrol Force Development) Squadron – including as 415’s squadron master warrant officer. He’s still at 415 Squadron while he works through his pre-release plan.
Four years ago, a friend retiring from the military wanted a shadow box, a common way to display a career’s worth of medals, coins, pennants, flags and other memorabilia.
“I borrowed a table saw and got some glass – everyone loved it,” Delorme says. Detail-oriented and a self-described “busy body,” Delorme thought, perhaps, a wood-working hobby could be “pocket change.
“And – my name got out there.”
His backyard wood shop is now well equipped, and he’s in it every day in all of his free time. Delorme acknowledges he often takes on too many wood-working projects at one time, but he’s aiming to keep the hobby at the enjoyment level for his own peace of mind.
“I’ll get phone calls – ‘You come highly recommended,’ or someone will bring me a family photo, medals and they ‘have an idea.’”
Delorme prefers it if people do come with an idea: he’d prefer not to gamble on, particularly, the significant message a shadow box, military gift or depart with dignity creation carries. While he treats every project – and their eventual recipient as equal, he’s been asked to make high-profile gifts for a retiring Royal Canadian Air Force chief warrant officer and commander.
“My objective is to provide cost-effective items for Canadian Armed Forces members – this is not about making money, but that everyone gets the opportunity to have something memorable.”
Facebook @ Delorme Woodworking ( https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089703636603 )
