When me and my brother, Mike were growing up in the greater Minneapolis area our parents Darlene and Gerald Hoffman, instilled in us many things that eventually shaped us into what we eventually became. One of them was to be kind to people and don’t judge a book by its cover. Another was to work hard and don’t cut corners in doing so and to expect failure before achieving success. There were many bumps in our journey that resulted in failure. At first it was devastating. Who likes to fail? Through many trials and tribulations throughout our collective lives we have learned that these failures ended up benefiting us in the long haul. Our main occupation over the course of our lives was painting contractors. I, personally never thought that this particular occupation would ever have a residual benefit. However, we both have used our vast painting knowledge on our Tamarack wood products. The color and special effects are a direct result of this past knowledge. We also benefited when my mother, father, Mike and myself launched Children’s Magic Window Magazine in the late 1990’s. As a family we averaged over 80 hours of work every week for nearly a decade. Until Go-Green came along, it was by far my proudest achievement. The magazine was heralded as the 'best of the best' by hundreds of pundits. Lack of funding, my fathers generosity of giving away hundreds of thousands of copies to children that were not as fortunate as Mike and I and the biggest factor was the beginning of the end to “reading” due to the continued development of the electronic age, the magazine closed its doors in 2008. The lessons we learned from this experience though were invaluable. My mother and father worked tirelessly even though they were tired. My mother never actually drew a paycheck in over 20 years. My father spent every cent he had to try to succeed. Everything our parents did as far back as we can remember were for family. Our mother died in the spring of 2009. The last few years she suffered like no one we had ever seen. But she always managed to smile no matter how much pain she was in. That fall, my father moved in with me and the blessing that came with his arrival cannot be put into words. In late November of 2012, I showed him two Tamarack walking sticks. One was finished and one was weathered. Despite being ill he came out of the shoot and said, “This is a winner.” That day I cut down a few dozen Tamaracks to be made into walking sticks. On December 2, the very week my brother was to move in to help me take care of Dad, we brought him into the hospital and he was never to return home where we shared so many good times that I will cherish forever. He passed away on December 18. Go-Green Products is a direct reflection of what my parents believed in. Whenever things don’t go the way we expect them to go, we think of our parents and there relentless zeal to make people happy around them.