Ashley Fulsom
A s a child, Ashley Fulsom would spend time with her grandfather in his woodworking shop, picking up the leftover wood pieces as her grandfather discarded them. “I would make little cities with them,” she said. “I’d get a piece of half-inch [board] and take all the little wood pieces and glue them down to the board and paint them and paint roads and stuff like that.”
Her love of building has stuck with Fulsom throughout her life. Now, as a professional cabinet builder soon to be running her own business, Fulsom looks back fondly on her days spent working with her grandfather.
Fulsom graduated from Dublin High School in 2005, and attended Mesquite Community College for a year to study architectural drafting. She left school after a year and moved back to Dublin to work at Outlaw Conversions, designing cabinets for campers and RVs.
When she was around 21, a mutual friend introduced her to her now-husband Bryan Fulsom, and she and Bryan married and moved to Beckville, Texas in 2008. There, she found a job at Donny Bennett Cabinet Shop as a cabinet builder, and still works there today.
Her previous job was only designing cabinets — not building them — so Fulsom had a learning curve to overcome when she first started. “Everyone builds them differently,” she said. “My boss is a fifthgeneration cabinet builder, so it was pretty cool to learn from him.”
The shop mainly does residential cabinets for people’s kitchens. “Every now and then we get some off-the-wall stuff,” Fulsom said. “We’ve built hidden closet doors, we built a murphy bed, a mantel for a fireplace with hidden gun storage.”
The shop consists of only five employees, and they work closely with customers to create exactly what the clients are looking for.
Soon, Fulsom will be taking on more responsibility at work. “My boss is going to be retiring in the next year or so and he’s going to have me take it over, so I’ve got to make that transition to running a business,” she said.
She plans to keep the same cabinet making methods, and continue to prioritize using topquality materials. “I just want to keep up the quality of the cabinets, keep the customers happy, and keep up the name,” she said.
When Fulsom gets free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband and their son Bryce, 10. “We do a lot of family things together,” she said. “Sometimes we’ll just go out and drive around and take back roads, and we’re outdoorsy, so we like to camp and go fishing.”
Fulsom finds inspiration for her own life in her son. “What keeps me going is wanting to teach my son to be a hard worker, save his money and be a respectable adult,” she said.
Her advice to Dublin graduates is not to let others discourage them from following their dreams. “Whatever it is that you wanna do in life, do it,” she said. “Nothing is stopping you but yourself and your fears and you have to overcome those and step out and take a chance.”
Editor’s Note: This column chronicles what Dublin graduates have done since high school. If you have any suggestions for other grads, email publisher@dublincitizen. com.