Thom Cantrall is a 5th generation son of the west. His great great grandparents both arrived in Oregon via the Oregon trail in the early 1850's, his great great grandmother being only 7 years old at the time. He grew up on a ranch, the son of parents who knew how to stimulate his curiosity and to encourage his creative bent. As a member of a large family, it was this creativeness that begin to give him the identity that would carry on through his life.Thom enlisted in the U.S. Navy right out of Sonoma High School in Sonoma, CA and spent the next nine years serving as a Polaris Missile Technician, five of those years aboard the U.S.S. James Madison, SSB(N) 627... a submarine in the "41 for Freedom" flotilla... After his time in the Navy, Thom enrolled in Peninsula College in Pt. Angeles, WA and finished at the University of Washington where his course of study was Logging Engineering. This career path put him into the deep timber often while totally alone and led to his deep and abiding love for all things wild.