Tree Ring LLC was founded in 2009 to manufacture and sell fine writing instruments and watches that commemorate milestones of individuals, society, and natural history through the growth rings of a tree. Trained as a forest ecologist, Dave Wager came up with the idea for the tree ring pen while in graduate school. While spending hours in the research lab counting and measuring tree rings, he discovered that a tree’s rings could be displayed beautifully on a wooden pen. By removing a cross-section of wood from a log, Wager could form a pen blank that included tree’s annual growth rings, from the center pith to the outer layer of bark. . In 2011 Wager began designing the first Tree Ring watch with a slice of a very small tree as the face of the watch. After years of perfecting different designs and components, the first Tree Ring watch was sold in the fall of 2014.
