ABOUT US
Our Beginning
How Semper Sharp Started
I was raised around knives. My grandfather was a knife maker and collector, and he was also my next-door neighbor growing up. I spent countless hours at his house, watching him work with different materials to build knives by hand. It's one of the most vivid memories of my childhood.
When I was about 16, some friends got me into bow hunting whitetail deer and turkey, and I fell in love with the outdoors — not the casual kind of love, either. I remember recovering from hernia surgery in a box stand in the middle of December because I wanted to be in the woods, not on the couch.
At 18, I went to culinary school in Chicago, and once again found myself in a world built around sharp knives. Cooking itself wasn't for me — the industry works nights and weekends while everyone else is off enjoying theirs — but I came away with a real appreciation for how much a chef's knives matter to their success. Some chefs carry their own knife roll to and from work every day, the same way a tradesman carries his tools.
When I gave up on cooking, I moved back home to Central Illinois, where my uncle got me a job welding Roll Over Protection Systems onto John Deere tractors. I enjoyed the work — there's something satisfying about grinding and shaping steel all day — but I knew I wanted something bigger. One day on the job, I heard a Marine Corps recruiting ad on the radio. I went straight to the recruiter's office and signed up that same day. A few weeks later, I was off to boot camp.
I spent eight years in the Marine Corps, using knives daily — from opening MREs to cutting copper communication wire in emergencies. (I still have a blade that arced off a live power line and lost half its edge.) After a deployment to Afghanistan, I was stationed at Marine Corps Base Hawaii, where I became a Marine Corps Instructor of Water Survival and spent as much time in the water as I could. I fell in with a group of Marines who were serious spearfishermen, and for a couple of years I was in the ocean with them almost daily.
Spearfishing is where I first started thinking seriously about what makes a good dive knife. My steel blade, kept in a nylon sheath, rusted out quickly despite daily rinsing. I started researching stainless steel and Kydex sheaths, visiting dive shops, and realized there was a real market for knives built to hold up in that environment.
As my time in Hawaii wound down, my wife Haley and our daughters took a space-available flight from Pearl Harbor to Alaska on a whim. We knew within 72 hours — helped along by a couple of enormous moose crossing right in front of our rental car — that it was the place for us. In that same trip, Haley landed a nursing job at the local hospital and we bought a house. I filed my separation paperwork as soon as we got back to Hawaii.
River — our family's limit is 55 fish a year — brought the same frustration: stopping to sharpen after nearly every fish. I started to realize the problem wasn't the number of fish or the size of the animal. It was the steel.
About three years into life in Alaska, my dad sent me a package of my grandfather's knife-making materials — steel blanks and tools, saved since his passing back when I was in culinary school. I started experimenting with them in the garage, ordering additional tools as I needed them, and posting photos of the results on social media. Orders started coming in.
We left the Marine Corps because we didn't want to raise our girls with me gone constantly for training and deployments, and because moving every three years takes a toll on kids. We put down roots in Alaska and have never looked back.
Alaska changes how you think about gear. Once you're off the road system, cell service disappears and you rely on what you're carrying. Cleaning my first moose took two and a half hours, and I had to stop repeatedly to resharpen my knife. Dip netting for salmon on the Kenai
Where We Are Today
From A Garage Hobby To A Full-Time Knife-Making Business
We've moved into a newer, larger shop in Palmer, Alaska, and every time we reinvest in the business, it goes toward efficiency — better equipment, better process, a better product.
From Alaska
To The World
Our knives are now carried by a handful of retail partners and have shipped to customers around the world.
Israel
Germany
Guam
Hong Kong
Norway
Sweden
Small By Design
Three Employees.
One Family.
One Standard of Craftmanship
We've stayed intentionally small: three employees, and we plan to keep it that way. Our team includes a disabled veteran, a high school student learning the trade from the ground up, and two craftsmen who handle our sheath work. Family is part of the shop too — my wife Haley and our daughter Emma, now 16, work side by side keeping the office and operations organized. Our older daughter is 17.
We're proud of how far this has come from a box of my grandfather's old tools, and we're just as committed to the craft today as we were on day one. Take a look through the site and our social media to see the materials, methods, and people behind every knife we make.
Rare Materials
Proven Steels
We've developed a real passion for rare, natural materials: woolly mammoth tusk and molar, musk ox horn, meteorite, fossilized walrus ivory, coral, and natural woods like ancient bog oak, Hawaiian koa, and desert ironwood. These materials, paired with steels built to hold an edge through anything Alaska throws at them, define our higher-end line today.
MEET THE TEAM
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
HALE
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.
LANDON
Spots are limited, so grab yours now, before the books close again! After you purchase your spot, we will email you with what number you are on the custom order list. Please reveiw all information below to understand how this process works.