Gorman Bros. Lumber in Kelowna, B.C. has finessed its edge in overseas niche markets.

As recently as 2006, Kelowna’s Gorman Bros. Lumber relied on the U.S. housing market as much as most producers in British Columbia. Company president and CEO Ron Gorman estimates that the family owned mill, which specializes in one-inch boards, shipped more than 80 per cent of its output south of the border.

“Along with almost everybody else, we found that the most logical market for us was the U.S.,” says Gorman. 

It wasn’t long, however, before the company saw the signs of a slowdown and made the decision to pursue overseas markets more aggressively, “countries that we would never have thought of selling to previously,” says the CEO.

So far, their strategy appears to be paying off.

Roughly 70 per cent of the mill’s lumber is now shipped to regions as diverse as the Caribbean, the Middle East, Japan and southeast Asia, with the remainder destined for buyers in Canada and the U.S. 

Their one-inch boards, predominantly spruce and lodgepole pine, are available in four quality categories. The tongue and groove product might end up as flooring in a cabin at a Japanese ski resort. Manufacturers in southeast Asia use the boards for furniture. Middle East buyers might use the lower quality lumber for mattress stringers or pallets.

“There are quite a few countries involved,” says Ron Gorman. “We always had some amount of product in the offshore market – just not very much. So we built on it. It’s not as if we woke up one day and said, ‘Let’s quit this and start that.’ It’s been a gradual thing.”

The global recession has softened orders, nonetheless. The company’s annual production has dipped from a peak of approximately 150 million board feet annually to around 130 million. But Gorman Bros. has so far avoided any extended shutdowns or significant production curtailments.

“It’s as tough for us as it is for anybody,” notes the CEO. “We’re not so different; every sale is a struggle, but how you cope is different for what you make and who you are.”

With some 300 employees on the payroll and over 50 years in the industry, Gorman Bros. is one of the largest specialty lumber producers in North America. Over the years, the company has invested heavily in equipment that has given it an edge in specialty markets.

Regardless of a producer’s size, Gorman feels the key is to “figure out what you’re good at, and then get really good at it. You need a lot of specialized equipment to be in these specialized markets, and it usually requires more capital investment for a given volume of wood, as well as increased labour costs.”

One of the newer upgrades at Gorman Bros. was the addition of a Nicholson A8 debarker in 2007. The 22-inch, dual-ring A8 can process mixed log types, dryness levels and log end orientations without sorting. The debarker can operate at feed speeds up to 550 feet per minute, depending on the log size and type. The A8 replaces an aging VK450 and Forano combination.

The breakdown continues with an Optimil 4-sided canter, followed by two Ukiah double arbour gang edgers and two Newnes transverse board edgers.