They say time flies when you are having fun! 25 Years have flown by.
We have had fun in the good times…skiing knee deep powder in Steamboat and sipping Goldschlager in Breckenridge. And fun too in the depths of the “great recession” July 2009 spending the night in a $20 hostel.
My relationship with Cris and Martin developed in the early 90’s when they became good customers of mine at KD Cedar Supply. They were the salesmen for Specialty wood in Denver when both of our companies were subsidiaries of Tumac Lumber in Portland. We quickly became friends, all of us raising families and sharing values. Honesty, sometimes perhaps overly direct, somehow worked to strengthen our bond. When my time came to an end at Tumac and began at Patrick in 1997, both Cris and Martin were supportive and were some of my first customers here.
Soon thereafter, they had the urge to start out on their own and asked if Patrick would finance their venture. Of course, I said, knowing Bob McCracken believed in “empowerment theory”. He was hungry for new ideas to rebuild the business after a tumultuous decade in the 90’s (see Business is Good, Locke). The concept became Woodsource, and they went about building the business. Their first location was outside of Golden on a strip of road right of way maybe 60’x500’. Wood flowed in, and soon our old company was caught peeking over the fence. We knew we had made it.
Martin’s creativity and the grit and determination defined in Cris made this partnership an instant success. You buy lumber and you sell lumber, what’s hard about that? When we approached suppliers, often they wanted volume to justify the new supply line. This was not a problem, Cris and Martin were like a giant termite, everything you shipped them they consumed. When Sierra Pacific agreed to sell us 8 loads of Incense cedar one of their large multi state distributors called a meeting at SPI headquarters. Brad Mehl, our salesman at SPI at the time, went to bat for us in the boardroom making the case and won.
Cris and Martin had their first $1,000,000 sales month in October of 2003. In celebration they opened a bottle of wine with a back story (see Business is Good) and afterwards went back to work. By then, Cris and Martin were the 4th & 5th shareholders in Patrick Lumber’s 4th generation of ownership. They have been instrumental in the growth and success we have experienced, holding positions as board members while remaining active traders, mentors and advisors. I could not ask for 2 better friends and partners. Congratulations on your milestone!