“It may sound simple, but that’s what good business is, having knowledgeable and honest people that work with you and not for you to bring quality products to the marketplace consistently and efficiently.” ~ Ed Mikowski, President, Mount Storm Forest Products
What keeps a lumber distributor in business for more than 40 years? We recently caught up with the President and owner of Mount Storm Forest Products, located in Windsor, CA, Ed Mikowski to find out. “Good people, quality products and consistent business are the keys to our longevity,” Mikowski offered. “Some of our people have worked with us for 30-plus years and that knowledge is key. It may sound simple, but that’s what good business is, having knowledgeable and honest people that work with you and not for you to bring quality products to the marketplace consistently and efficiently.”
Mount Storm Forest Products distributes hardwood, softwood, and imported lumber. The operation purchases about 100,000 board feet each of imported woods and softwoods. Imported species include: Afrormosia; Bubinga; Goncalo Alves; Jatoba (Brazilian Cherry); Lacewood; Madrone; Makore; Mahogany (African); Mahogany (Genuine); Meranti (Philippine Mahogany); Padouk; Purpleheart; Rosewood (Bolivian); Sapele; Sipo; Teak; Walnut (Peruvian); Wenge; and Zebrawood. In softwoods, species offerings include Ponderosa and Eastern White Pine, Cypress, vertical grain Fir, Western Red Cedar and Red Elm.
One million board feet annually of Red and White Oak, Poplar, Ash, Basswood, Cherry, Hickory and Walnut (4/4 through 16/4, random width, plain, rift, or quarter sawn) is also purchased by Mount Storm. Other product offerings include drawer slides, moldings, cabinet components, flooring, stair treads and plywood.
The company was established in 1980 to provide hardwood lumber to the woodworking community in the Northern San Francisco Bay Area. “Since then, we have expanded our distribution to a much greater area of Northern California, as well as other parts of the United States and overseas,” Mikowski explained. “I worked in the construction industry right after high school, but my Dad talked me into going back to school. I went back for science and majored in biology with a minor in chemistry. My sister was a forester in West Virginia at the time and I had a friend who worked for a furniture plant north of San Francisco and they had trouble getting hardwood lumber.
He said surely your sister Mary must know someone who has a sawmill. I ended up looking into it and I shipped a boxcar of Red Oak lumber to the West Coast. When it arrived in Santa Rosa, I had to hand unload it. That’s how we started out. We kept everything in an unused milking barn on an old dairy farm and that’s where we were until we bought our first building. This is how it began. I sold a load of lumber to cabinet shops and lumber yards in 1980 at 24 years old.”
He continued, “Today our customers include the local woodworking community and many different types of wood product manufacturers, lumber yards and home centers. Our product mix has increased to include items from a variety of vendors and some of our own manufactured products and services.”
Situated in 90,000 square-feet, the equipment used in operation at Mount Storm is expansive and continues to grow. Mikowski walked us through the list of equipment the operation utilizes. “We recently added a CNC profile grinding machine, which was a sizable investment,” he explained. “Our other equipment includes two Weinig molders, a 52-inch Butfering three head sander, a high-production Newman 282 planer and a Diehl straight-line ripsaw. We have two Mereen-Johnson 312 select-a-rip gang rip saws that will gang rip multiple pieces in one pass.
The 16-foot in-feed fence along with the continuous feed chain and hydro-lock arbor provides a clean, accurate glue line straight blank. We mostly use it for producing our moulding blanks, but it can provide precision-ripped optimized blanks using programmable, moveable blades.”
A computer-controlled CAD programmed protemp template maker can reproduce or create new templates for any moulding profile. Mikowski said profiles are stored in the database for quick and easy retrieval. He continued, “Our Baker BBR-O horizontal tilting table 12-inch resaw will resaw on center, resaw off center, resaw face or resaw at an angle. The Rosenquist radio frequency edge gluer has a 50-inch width capacity for large or small parts. A solid clamping table flattens and clamps during the gluing process to produce tabletops, panels, molder blanks etc., that can be ready for use in minutes. A Dimter Opticut S50 programmable optimizing crosscut saw provides end trimming and defecting with tolerances + or – .031.
As for how it all works, Mikowski said, “We are able to do all of this with experienced personnel. More than half have been employed here from 15 to 40 years. We have our own manufacturing capabilities and a fleet of delivery trucks. It is our commitment to make our customer’s job easier. People call or walk in for help and our staff is knowledgeable and ready to assist. Even if we can’t help someone, we still try to point them in the right direction. We treat everyone with respect.
Looking at the next 40 years, Mikowski said, “We’ve started new markets in recent years with thermally modified woods. We bring it in and process it into different products for exterior use. We have also been marketing thermally modified decking and cladding products from Estonia for the last 10 years and we have other products that are in the works. At the beginning, we started solely in hardwood lumber, but we have other product offerings now and we’re looking at developing more.”
Mount Storm Forest Product is a member of the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA). For more information visit www.mountstorm.com.
