2024 A Successful Year For Many, Hope That Success Carries Through To 2025
2024 was overwhelmingly a successful year for many companies, despite the challenges that many faced. One participant stated, “Even though it had its challenges, we view the year as a success…”
While there are some participants that expect the start of 2025 to be slow, many have hope that 2025 will continue to be another successful year overall. “…we are optimistic that 2025 will be even more successful than 2024 as the mood going into 2025 seems to be favorable,” remarked one respondent.
While 2024 did come with some challenges, particularly around maintaining skilled and reliable employees, one participant made a point to note, “…the challenge is replacing long term employees with years of knowledge and experience when they retire. Although it opens opportunities for others, that experience is not easily replaced.”
Chris Brown
Culpeper Wood Preservers
Culpeper, VA
2024 proved to be a successful year for our company. We announced three new acquisitions which helped add strategic locations to our footprint.
The challenge for 2025 continues to be focused on the overall demand within our industry and economic conditions. However, we do anticipate a strong Q3 and Q4 in 2025.
We sell to independent lumber yards. Our strongest products this year were decking, dimensional lumber, fence products and heavy timbers.
In 2024 we introduced another size to our Culpeper Column category called the Culpeper Plus Column. We also offered our Prodigy Decking in new markets.
We did not install any new equipment in 2024. We did however add additional buildings and storage at our plants.
Filling the positions has not been an issue in 2024. However, we have seen around a 12-15 percent increase in labor expenses.
We do not anticipate any transportation or shipping issues for 2025.
Dean Garofano
Delta Forestry Group
Pitt Meadows, BC
Considering the overall lack of log supply and reduced U.S. lumber consumption we still managed to grow our business so I would consider 2024 a success. With our strong following and long-term partnerships, we managed to increase our sales volume by about 20 percent from 2023. Going into 2025 our two main challenges will once again be log supply and the expected doubling of duties again this summer.
We mainly sell to distribution in the U.S. and Canada and trading houses and importers in Asia and Europe.
Our automated scanning trim line and 80 bin sorter was completed early in 2024. It has been a slower start up than we had hoped but the line is now running well and starting to produce more value and some increased production.
Finding employees has not been too difficult for us. However, the challenge is replacing long term employees with years of knowledge and experience when they retire. Although it opens opportunities for others, that experience is not easily replaced.
As a producer of Western Red Cedar, the value of many of our products is already very high in comparison to most other species. The expected doubling or more of the current duties will increase costs and prices across the board but will be particularly impactful on Cedar products.
Leslie Southwick
Elk Creek Forest Products
McMinnville, OR
2024 has been a successful business year for Elk Creek Forest Products, though it has been bittersweet due to the loss of some key manufacturing facilities. Despite this, we have adapted by responding to market needs and ensuring we continue to deliver products to our customers. As we progress within our organization, we are optimistic that 2025 will be even more successful than 2024 as the mood going into 2025 seems to be favorable.
Our customers primarily fall under the category of wholesale distribution, but we do have occasional outliers that fall into the retail category as well. We are well known for supplying premium dry Douglas Fir timbers and those continue to be some of our best-sellers. We are also seeing growth within our 7/8-inch board program and our rough sawn 2-inch and timbers.
Elk Creek Forest Products continues to see growth opportunities as a driving force to being able to bring in-demand products to the market, so we made the decision to acquire McGriff Lumber in Boring, OR, earlier in 2024. We have now added a full line of green Douglas Fir boards ranging from 1×2 through 1×12 as well as 2×2, 2×3 and 3×3. Lengths available are 8-20-feet. All products are free of wane, premium/appearance grade that can also qualify for FSC® certification.
Elk Creek Forest Products will have completed the installation of a high-speed twin resaw manufacturing system that started up at the end of 2024 and will be fully operational by early 2025. This highly anticipated project will increase production and more than triple the output of our current system, while adding significant automation and precision to the process. With increased covered space and incorporating an anti-stain solution system to combat iron stain and mold, Elk Creek will be able to handle both green and kiln-dry production to meet larger volume customer demand as well as being able to handle niche- specific requests.
We have been fortunate to make some great hires this year within our office. It can be challenging at times to find qualified people to work within our manufacturing facilities, but that can be true for any industry. Fortunately, our culture and reputation for being a people first work environment has benefited us by being able to retain many highly skilled, dedicated and committed employees.
Currently, obtaining trucks has become difficult and may continue to be in 2025. The availability of trucks and drivers continues to be an issue and also getting backhauls out of less populated areas are a struggle as well.
Patrick Goodfellow
Goodfellow, Inc.
Delson, QC
Goodfellow Inc. would characterize 2024 as a successful year, despite the impacts of significant price decreases across all low grades of Eastern White Pine, which made it difficult to achieve overall returns in the second half of the year. Looking to 2025, the company expects a slow start in demand but expects a pickup in the second half. The challenge for Goodfellow will be ensuring the right supply is on hand to meet this upturn.
In 2024, strong customer demand for Douglas Fir timbers, along with production shortages of specialty timber on the West Coast, contributed to positive returns for Goodfellow. The company also achieved solid results in the Eastern White Pine category, supported by a manufacturing customer base driven by a strong renovation market and a growing demand in cottage country.
Goodfellow has expanded its capabilities in glulam fabrication and large-diameter timber custom milling. Supported by in-house engineering and technical services to meet precise customer specifications, as well as a full range of hardware, treatment and finishing options, Goodfellow is positioned as an ideal partner for comprehensive project support.
In 2024, Goodfellow installed a high-capacity double cut resaw, enabling efficient processing of timber for a wide range of applications – from large-scale timber frame projects to specialized industrial needs, regardless of dimension.
While the labor shortage has stabilized somewhat, the company is in constant pursuit of skilled laborers and technicians. A key focus has remained to train and upskill the existing employee base.
In the past year, the company has experienced volatility in inbound and outbound shipping costs. This has played havoc on pricing of finished goods.
While export tariffs are an ongoing concern, these costs inevitably are passed on to customers who fully understand such conditions.
Matt Duprey
Hancock Lumber Co.
Casco, ME
Looking back on the year, 2024 will go down as a challenging year for lumber manufacturers. Even though it had its challenges, we view the year as a success in the sense that our company performed well enough to overcome post-Covid costing, we sold our production that our mills produced and we were able to grow market share in areas of the country that we did not do a lot of business in.
Our customers are direct retail programs, wholesale distributors, buying groups, manufacturers and wholesale brokers. I would say that our direct to retail programs, manufacturers and wholesale distributors were the strongest in our lineup for 2024.
In 2024 we expanded and invested in our value-added products, bringing finishing in-house and new products into the marketplace. We have increased market penetration with our end-matched products, shrink wrapping capabilities and solidified some major accounts with our new UV Hancock ProFinish product lines.
Capital reinvestments remained steady this year in our sawmills. In Pittsfield, we upgraded a pressure vessel on our main boiler and added in a back pressure turbine to make power. We installed a twin band resaw in Pittsfield that replaced an outdated single resaw and expanded our production at that site. In Casco we added an additional dry kiln to give us room to expand our production. Also, in Casco we replaced our old Esterer Sash Gang saw with a new one for secondary breakdown. Our new Hancock ProFinish facility continue to invest time and money in perfecting the priming and staining processes for our Eastern White Pine boards.
Our team remains focused on creating a world-class employee experience and fostering a culture where every employee feels trusted, respected, valued and heard. Our mission is to enhance the lives of the people who choose to work at the company, and employees are empowered to lead and make decisions. We consistently prioritize the employee experience and work towards continuously improving that. Those are all foundational pieces to attracting talent and reaching our goal to have teams fully staffed. We remain focused on reducing turnover and creating robust hiring, onboarding and mentoring programs to help pull new team members onto Team Hancock. We also remain dedicated to analyzing and improving pay systems and exceeding living wage benchmarks, all while providing career path planning and promoting internal advancement opportunities. Throughout 2024 our budgeted production schedule ran without disruption, despite having open positions.
Transportation remained steady in 2024. The supply of trucks versus the demand for them was higher, so our coverage was great. Our products did not sit for more than a day or two once packaged and staged for shipping which is an improvement over years prior. Costs came down and service levels went up. For export products, it was a bit of an opposite story. Service was poor, prices were high, and—in general—it was very hard to have consistency with our customers due to the volatility of the ocean freight and freight forwarding companies.
My concern is that the expected tariffs will throw the import/export market into a frenzy of not knowing how to plan and who gets what fiber in 2025. I worry about inflation with expected tariffs, freight inconsistencies and issues that could cause both short and long term supply constraints depending on the markets that will be affected.
Linda McGinnis
Keller Lumber Co.
Roseburg, OR
2024 was not a very good year for us. With interest rates so high, it brought demand to a standstill. In 2025 we will be battling the same conditions. Our products are fencing and decking. With fencing and decking, we are one year behind construction lumber. Since the number of houses built is going down each year, we will have at least one more poor year. When housing starts improve we will still have a year to wait.
Our customers are usually people that own homes. Our clear products were very strong and low grade lumber was just average. For Keller Lumber, we had a high grade deck, so we produced a lot of Standard and Better Lumber. With no houses being built there was no demand for Standard and Better lumber. Clears are usually 2 percent of our production, so we weren’t able to depend on clears. Low grade is 35 percent of our production, so we weren’t able to depend on low grade either.
Having enough skilled employees is always a problem. But with economic conditions so unfavorable, we have operated our facility with much less. In fiscal year 2024 we ran 78 days. In 2023 fiscal year we ran 97 days. In 2022 fiscal year we ran 127 days. Our idea is not to saturate the market with unneeded volume. We only run when there is a demand.
We only ship nationally, and with so little demand, transportation did not affect us very much.
Gurinder Grewal
Partap Forest Products Ltd.
Maple Ridge, BC
2024 was definitely better and more successful than the previous year. We need to overcome the shortage of fiber that we expect to experience in 2025.
Our customers are distributors, repeat customers and new customers. Our strongest sellers in 2024 were 6×6, 4×4, 2×4 and 1×6 fencing.
We have plans to start up a small log line at our Bridgeview Coastal Sawmills. We installed a dip tank for our Hemlock specie, this has benefited our company by supplying a good material to the market which doesn’t deteriorate due to mold quickly.
We have not had any issues with retaining employees in 2024.
We have noticed that carriers don’t want to take certain loads into some parts of the U.S. because it’s tough to get a load back for them. Rail and port strikes played an effect on our market.
We wish that the tariffs were lower but what they currently are at is fine. The expected increase in tariffs now will have an effect on the market and I feel it will affect some businesses more than others.
Alden Robbins
Robbins Lumber Inc.
Searsmont, ME
2024 is a successful year in the fact that we have made some hard changes that will make us a stronger company into the future. We ended up selling off an older mill site, and indefinitely curtailing another, at the same time making significant investments in our remaining facilities which have increased production and grade recovery. Obviously, this market has been hard on everyone, and without a crystal ball, we had to react to the conditions as we saw them, which was oversupplied in the low grades. While the closures are painful, they were necessary, and the additional investments we made in the East Baldwin and Searsmont facilities have set us up to be competitive and successful into the future. To continue into 2025, we need to be increasingly vigilant in looking at opportunities to become more efficient, reduce costs where possible, recover maximum value from the resource, and continue to invest in our people and facilities.
We distribute to our customers through distribution yards throughout the country, and to independent yards within the state of Maine. We also move wood through brokers and export some low grade. Some of the best movers in 2024 were the high grade items, and some of our value added lines.
In 2024 we have expanded some of our value added lines.
We have replaced two optimizing board edgers with high speed Lico optimizing edgers with Comact Edge Experts ahead of them giving us full grade optimization. Both projects were successful and on time.
Having enough employees continues to be a problem. We are lucky enough to have a core group of long-standing employees, but we have been successful in picking up additional staff through diligence, attending trade fairs and working with intern programs from educational institutions.
Domestic shipping has opened up some with the slowdown in the economy; we get multiple calls a day from companies looking to haul freight. Internationally the port strikes have caused waves, and with the results of the recent election and fears of additional tariffs, I expect 2025 to have increasing volatility with the international shipping markets.
Since we are a domestic producer, who also exports, I see both sides of the coin. As a whole, additional tariffs on incoming products could potentially benefit us as a whole, but that is above my pay grade.
Terry Secrest, Executive Vice President of Manufacturing and Sales
John Smith, Director of Supply Chain
RoyOMartin
Alexandria, LA
2024 has been a successful year for RoyOMartin. Our facilities are low cost and produce quality products desired by our customers, so the demand is there. We believe the improving tone in the U.S. economy and the housing market will help us be even more successful in 2025.
We sell to wholesalers, distribution, retail, industrial and a few brokers, all the products we produced in 2024 sold without issue.
Corrigan OSB, LLC a wholly owned subsidiary of Martco LLC (RoyOMartin), started up a second OSB facility on the existing Corrigan, TX, site in June of 2024. When fully functional, this will increase our system OSB capacity by 33 percent. The facility is ramping up ahead of schedule and will contribute to 2025’s success. Our Plywood facility has implemented equipment and improved processes to better utilize the facility labor in a tight hiring market.
It’s finding quality employees; we work diligently to find the best candidates in a very competitive labor market. This is a challenge, but we have exceeded in the areas of wages, benefits, safety and employee engagement.
Truck transportation appears to continue to be readily available and the “truck recession” has persisted. Indicators are mixed on if we will see that rebound in the next one to two quarters, but we cautiously continue to watch. At some point, this will come back around and capacity with resulting price increases will be a concern. For now, we do not see any immediate issues.
Rail service and car supply have been favorable. Cost increases from labor agreements and the green initiatives continue to incentivize the railroads to raise prices. Right now some class one’s continue to manage on the long-term, ignoring any softness in the truck market, limiting new business initiatives. The push to improve revenue performance and endeavors to fine tune the Precision Scheduled Railroad (PSR) continue to re-shape operations. Customer tools and data integration are bright spots as the railroads do appear to be investing in modernizing these connections with customers offering more tools to streamline business communications/insights.
We export very little, so the tariffs are not a concern for our products; but the plywood products shipped into the U.S. have created unfair competition in some markets that need to be addressed.
