By Scott Dalton
“When I was younger, I didn’t think about joining the company all that much. After high school, I just started working with dad more and it took off and went. In our particular case, I would work here in the shop doing the pallet lumber and my dad would be making deliveries. While I was here, people were coming in and saying, ‘Gee, if you had higher-quality lumber, we’d buy it.’”- Dave Vetsch, owner, Vetsch Hardwoods
When Allen Vetsch decided to get into the lumber business in the mid-1970s, he chose pallet and crating lumber as his specialty. The focus served his company — AJ Vetsch Incorporated — well for the first 15 years of its existence.
Despite the success, however, it was anything but certain that Allen’s son, Dave, would join him in the family business.
“When I was younger I didn’t think about joining the company all that much. After high school, I just started working with dad more and it took off and went,” Dave remembered. “In our particular case, I would work here in the shop doing the pallet lumber and my dad would be making deliveries. While I was here, people were coming in and saying, ‘Gee, if you had higher-quality lumber, we’d buy it.’”
That prompted the Vetsch family to reconsider the direction of the company.
Today, dealing primarily in 4/4, Vetsch Hardwoods, Inc., located in Rochester, MN, occasionally works with 5/4, 6/4 and 8/4 in Select and Better and FAS. The company purchases more than half-a-million board feet of high-quality Hardwood annually. Oak represents about 20 percent of their business. The company also sells a fair amount of Poplar, Birch, and Cherry.
“Around 1990 or so, we switched from pallet lumber to high grade cabinet lumber. That’s when I started working with him full time,” he said. “A couple years later, my brother Peter joined us.”
That was also when the Vetsch family decided to rebrand the company as Vetsch Hardwoods to better reflect what they were actually offering. Today, the company bears scant resemblance to the business that Allen once operated pretty much single handedly. When he started, he ran all of the operations out of a 3,000-square-foot facility. By the 1980s, he expanded, adding another 3,000-square-foot facility to help house the growing business.
“Then, in 2008 and 2009, we put up our big new warehouse,” Dave recalled. “Now we have a 12,000-square-foot facility with insulation and heated floors.”
The company’s staff has also grown. Instead of one man working alone, the company now employs five full-timers, including Allen, Dave, Peter and Dave’s sons Jacob and Nathan.
Dave also noted that the warehouse was built in the midst of what at the time was the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The housing crash of 2007/2008 tested the mettle of many businesses, and none more so than those in the building industry. Dave said the experience helped toughen the resolve of Vetsch Hardwoods.
“It did make you wonder, but to be in this business, you have to be optimistic; you have to believe it will work out in the end,” he said. “We put a lot of money in here, and all the sales were going to pot. But we didn’t sit around crying about it. We were concerned, but we kept going. Ever since, we felt that if we could make it through that, we could make it through anything.”
Dave mentioned that he has witnessed a number of changing trends during his time in the industry. He noted that through the 1990s, Oak dominated the market, accounting for about two-thirds of all the cabinet lumber Vetsch Hardwoods sold.
Similarly, although paint grade lumber remains extremely popular when it comes to cabinets, that trend may be nearing a turning point.
“It might be reaching its end,” Dave predicted. “It wouldn’t surprise me if paint grade has run its course.”
One thing that has not changed is Vetsch Hardwoods’ client base. Dave said that although cabinet shops in the area are the main customers, there are also homeowners and hobbyists.
“We are happy to sell to them too,” he said. “Other places might chase them out.”
Dave added that because the company consists of a “small tight group,” it faced no difficulties staying open during the pandemic. What was less certain, however, was staying fully supplied.
“It was close, but we were fine. Prices went up of course, and we were tight on a few things, but overall it was fine,” he said. “I think part of that we can attribute to the lumber mills we buy from. They are mostly mills we have bought from for a long time, so they take care of us, too.”
The folks at Vetsch Hardwoods also worked hard to take care of their customers. They employ a small fleet of delivery vehicles, consisting of two flatbed trucks and a pickup. Dave added that a lot of people pick up their own deliveries at the warehouse. He noted that their warehouse is fully equipped and ready to meet customers’ needs.
“We have three forklifts, two warehouse forklifts and a rough terrain forklift. We have two Northfield planers. We run one at a time and keep the other one sharpened and ready to go. We also have two Diehl rips saws and operate one at a time, keeping the other as a spare. We have a 36-inch AEM brand sander and a five-head Leadermac moulder,” he said.
Dave said that despite its success, Vetsch Hardwoods has no immediate plans to grow or expand into new markets, saying “It’s too early to tell.”
“We can handle what we’ve got here. We’ll do fine. We have no plans to open another facility or to expand greatly. We pay enough in property taxes the way it is,” he said with a chuckle. “Everything that has happened happened organically. We just started doing this because no one else in the area was doing it, and it went pretty well.”
For more information about Vetsch Hardwoods, visit www.vetschhardwoods.com.
