Woodville, MS – Located here in this quaint town of fewer than 2,000 residents and situated due north of the Louisiana-Mississippi border in a state whose most southern boundary empties into the Gulf of Mexico is 70-year-old Fred Netterville Lumber Co. Today, Matthew Netterville, operations manager, and Seth Netterville, represent the fourth generation in the family to build upon the legacy of quality products and successful business acumen set forth by their father, grandfather and great-grandfather.
“We honor our roots as a business,” Matthew explained. “We find ourselves constantly coming back to those roots. We try to be really good at what we know we are good at, and what we are known for.”
What Fred Netterville Lumber Co. is known for is high quality 4/4 through 8/4 grade lumber, industrial lumber and ties, in Southern Hardwoods, with 90 percent of its lumber production in the Oaks, Ash, Poplar and Cypress. The company utilizes its sister company, C&J Timber, to cut and log trees from its own timber tracts, where roots run deep within the rich, fertile loess soil of the Mississippi Delta. Also, American Timber, owned by Seth Netterville, is responsible for the procurement of timber for Fred Netterville.
“The most important factor we’ve been emphasizing is efficiency. As I always tell everybody in this metaphor: we have the tools in the toolbox. Let’s use them, and what we know about this industry, as efficiently as we can. It’s a global economy and a global marketplace. Any competitive edge we can offer, such as the highest quality Southern Hardwoods gives us an advantage. It’s a standard to uphold.”
Matthew Netterville, Operations Manager, Fred Netterville Lumber Co.
Matthew knows the timber well, having grown up here in the lumber industry. “This timber has a very good color. It’s comparable to Appalachian color with wider widths and lengths of lumber. The loess soil here, I think, contributes to the quality and color of what we mill. Due to better timber management, we are seeing bigger and more quality timber. Over the years, the soil from the West has blown to the East and has built up on the banks of the Mississippi River. We have benefited through generations from this rich soil in the timber we harvest.”
In fact, Fred Netterville Lumber Co. produces approximately 15 million board feet of lumber annually and maintains approximately 4 million board feet of inventory at any given time. The company purchases green lumber within a 250-300-mile radius.
Driving Fred Netterville Lumber’s lengthy success has been the shared foresight by its leaders to understand when to invest back into the company to spur growth overall. For example, the firm today has 1 million board feet of dry kiln capacity thanks to expansion. In its infancy, the company offered nothing but green lumber until 1978 when it installed a dry kiln with a 150,000-board foot capacity.
Matthew stated, “We realized we needed to expand. From that aspect, we now have three different grading lines here. We have one on which two inspectors grade the majority of our grade lumber, which we can also reman. We built a planer into that system. Then last year, we added another grading line with one inspector, and that line has a Newman 382 planer. That brings our total number of planers to four onsite, including a Newman 282, in addition to the 382, a Yates American B-26 and a Yates American A-20.”
Matthew explained further that Fred Netterville Lumber has two separate gang rip saw lines, “so if we have customers who want specific blanks ripped for furniture or molding parts, we can accommodate that. Our customers receive 100 percent use of the material they order from us when we send it to them, especially if we can go ahead and gang rip it. We do a good bit of that. For example, we have a molding and millwork department in which we make specialized products.
“Our strategy behind doing this is that as trucking has become harder to access through the years, which contributes to elevated freight expense for everyone, the more efficient we can be in giving the product to the customers, then the better it is for them and for us.”
Netterville is running a new Cleereman sawmill capable of cutting 8-foot to 30-foot material. The complete installation from Cleereman included the following: a heavy duty log deck, a linear 4-headblock carriage, linear carriage controls, heavy duty log turner, heavy duty modular track frame, 200 horsepower hydrostatic carriage drive, cable tensioner, a sawyer booth, a sub-steel package, pull-back roll case with cant pins, a husk with top saw and Cleereman Controls-motor/starter dispatch.
This facility includes a West Plains resaw and a timber merchandising timber sorter capable of 2-foot to 30-foot. “We cut a lot of cross-ties,” Matthew said. “In this mill we have a lot of versatility, which helps production.”
Fred Netterville Lumber’s drying facility is defined by Matthew as “our concentration yard. We buy all green lumber in all species and we specialize in buying White Oak in No. 1 and Better, 4/4 through 8/4, 10 feet or longer. All of this goes to our air-dry yard for 30-45 days. We have about 4 million board feet of dry storage space. After air-drying, we start putting the lumber in our kilns. We sell our No. 2 and lower grades green.”
Matthew estimates that 50 percent of the company’s production is sold green and 50 percent is sold kiln-dried.
Fred Netterville Lumber’s close proximity to major waterways – just 20 miles away from the Mighty Mississippi River, 220 miles from the Port of Mobile (AL) and 120 miles from New Orleans – lends itself to ease of access for export prep. “We sell a significant amount of grade lumber overseas into the Asian and European market,” commented Matthew. “We market our international exports through Hardwoods of America.”
The ability to export lumber was unheard of back in 1915 when Fred Netterville’s father introduced his family to the lumber industry. This occurred after a man came to his farm in Woodville with a portable sawmill to cut lumber for tenant houses. The senior Netterville’s neighbors asked if he would saw some lumber for them, and so began the business. He used a peckerwood sawmill to cut primarily pine until 1945, when he began sawing Hardwoods. He managed to produce between 3,000 and 5,000 board feet daily.
In 1953, Fred Netterville formally established the company that today bears his name. This occurred after he graduated from the University of Mississippi in Oxford and returned home to find his father ill and ready to leave the sawmill business. The senior Netterville offered to partner with his son until 1956. However, Fred bought his father’s share and carried the business forward. At that time, he operated an old diesel engine to power the sawmill. Years later, he switched to electricity. An old straddle car and a fork lift comprised the early equipment that moved Netterville’s lumber.
In 1956, Fred decided to expand the company. He built a circle mill, which years later burned down. He built another mill, which 10 months later also burned down. Determined to keep his operation afloat, Fred constructed a third mill, which is still operating at the Woodville site today. Fred’s son Charlie joined the Netterville team in 1980 and the father-son duo steered the company’s success until 2000, when Fred was fatally injured in a horseback riding accident. Charlie then assumed the reins of the company as president, and today his sons Matthew and Seth represent the fourth generation of leaders at Netterville.
While the industry has changed and machinery has become more sophisticated, the stewards of Fred Netterville Lumber Co. have remained true to the founding father’s original mission of paying attention to details in order to grow and succeed.
Matthew echoes that sentiment. “The most important factor we’ve been emphasizing is efficiency. As I always tell everybody in this metaphor: we have the tools in the toolbox. Let’s use them, and what we know about this industry, as efficiently as we can. It’s a global economy and a global marketplace. Any competitive edge we can offer, such as the highest quality Southern Hardwoods gives us an advantage. It’s a standard to uphold.”
Fred Netterville Lumber Co. is a member of the National Hardwood Lumber Association, the Hardwood Manufacturers Association, and the Railway Tie Association. Charlie and Matthew served on the board of directors and Charlie is a past president of the Hardwood Manufacturers Association. Matthew is currently serving on the Board of Directors of the Railway Tie Association.
More information about Fred Netterville Lumber Co. is available at www.nettervillelumber.com.
