Our lumber is markedly more expensive than a year ago. In every phase of our business, we are spending more for it than we were a year ago. When lumber is more expensive, the cost of waste rises. It’s the nature of our business that material that goes in the dumpster may be ugly, but we paid the same for the waste as we do for the good pieces. The more expensive our raw material, […]

I was in Shipshewana at our mill yesterday. They had a celebration about their fantastic year. The team in Shipshewana set records in timber and logs purchased, the amount of timber logged by our crews, and the amount of lumber cut, assembled into pallets and shipped. They also put two-thirds of their pallets through a dryer. The drivers covered over a million miles recovering logs and shipping pallets. As you might have expected, all these […]

President Obama was inaugurated yesterday. I caught the highlights and sound bytes on television last night and this morning. Much of the discussion was about whether the president can be successful at facilitating agreement between the warring political factions. It is common to believe that our government in Washington is dysfunctional. And, because of that dysfunction, we may be in difficulty as a society as we proceed. While I won’t be so simple as to […]

We are fortunate to have one of the best Chief Financial Officers in the world. Casey Fletcher. Really, the world. I’ve been working with Casey since 1981. When we started PalletOne, we were fortunate that Casey came aboard with us as partner and financial master. Through his thoughtful, steadfast, knowledgeable, dogged, inventive stewardship, we have earned the confidence and respect of investors, bankers and the rest of the financial community. I learned early on in […]

There is a business theory that says that if a company focuses on building an “engaged” workforce, the bottom line will take care of itself. There is another theory that says that if a company focuses on the “customer” and provides superior customer satisfaction, the bottom line will take care of itself. A study was done recently to attempt to figure out which theory carries more weight. The answer turns out not to be “either/or.” […]