PalletOne Scholarship Honors Isaacson Lumber Company Founder

Blackburg, VA - October 15, 2006 - Ryan Anthony, a student majoring in Packaging Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, has been named the winner of a $1,500 scholarship awarded on behalf of PalletOne by Virginia Tech's Center For Unit Load Design.

Anthony is in the college's first class of the new educational study option in packaging science. The program's focus is to improve the efficiency and safety of the global unit load logistics system for product storage and distribution by understanding how critical components in the system interact during use.

PalletOne contributed the scholarship in honor of Abraham "Sonny" Isaacson, who was the founder of the company's Livermore Falls, Maine operation known as Isaacson Lumber Company. The business began in 1946 when Isaacson had the fortune of winning $10,000 in a game of dice on the first night of a one month oversea journey from Europe to the United States as a serviceman at the end of World War II.

Despite the pressure from shipmates to continue gambling, Isaacson managed to arrive at port with his winnings. He returned to his family in Livermore Falls, ME and used the money to begin a portable sawmill business. The handsaw system he created was innovative for its time and produced one truck load per week. While the work was profitable it did come at a price, Isaacson and his crew lived n the woods all week and return home only on Sundays to see family and rest.

In 1954, Isaacson built a sawmill which burned down in 1957. In 1958, he built a new mill that operated for 5 years until burning down. In 1964, he purchased the site that the company still operates on today and built a softwood mill. In 1966, Isaacson added a hardwood mill and began manufacturing pallets. As the business grew, Isaacson enlisted his three sons to assist in managing the operation.

In 1981, Sonny Isaacson passed away, but left the mill in the capable hands of his children. Today the plant employs over 140 and produces over 55 loads a week or 20 million board feet annually.


 TRADE 2006-02
Jennifer Daniels
Marketing Communications
863.533.1148 x1306
jdaniels@PalletOne.com