Happy 80th Birthday, Dee

Et VERY once in a great while la (u very great while) it is our pleasure to encounter a man about whom the old chestnut reallY applies: "he's probably forgotten more about the lumber industrY than most people will ever know."

Dee Essley, whose 80th birthday we are saluting this month, is such a man. In his eight decades of vigorous living, he has left behind him a record of achievement that is remarkable. He is a long-time and very successful lumberman D.C. Essley & Son, Los Angeles; a community leader in the very real sense of the term - founding father and guiding light of the Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital; and an industry contributorboth through industrY associations and the Hoo-Hoo lumberman's fraternity.

Like many an old timer, he is unabashed in his joy in and appreciation of wood and what it can do. He recalls that he was "always fascinated with lumberI don't know whyeven as a small boy I could never pass up a lumber yard, I just had to go in and look around."

A man with a still big and booming voice, it was his love of singing that, in a round-about way, lead Dee to becoming a lumberman in 1915.

Through singing in the church

choir in his hometown of Whittier, Ca., he became acquainted with Corrine Orban, the daughter of Mike Orban who had the Whittier Lumber Co. and the niece of Peter Orban of Orban Lumber, which then was in Pasadena.

Story at a Glance

A brief look at the busy life of Dee C. Essley on the occasion of his 80th birthday a remarkable, energetic man whose career contains achievements in a variety of business, community and charity endeavors.

Despite a lack of any real background in the business, other than transporting some lumber when he worked for his father's transfer company, he began in the office, doing bookkeeping.

He tackled his job with the ability, enthusiasm and hard work that quickly marked him as a comer and he soon was active in the management of the retail yard.

In 1921 he moved over to the wholesale end of the business when he went to work for A.L. "Gus" Hoover, selling with him in southern California production from Wendling-Nathan Co. and the Pacific Lumber Co. He was Gus' first salesman.

Nine years later, on the eve of the depression, in 1929, he accepted a position as executive secretary and manager of the old California Retail Lumberman's Assn., which then covered the entire state. He. worked under and with Harry A. Lake, who served as CRLA president, for six years, until both departed in 1935.

With the onset of the dePression years he threw his considerable energies into helping the retail trade with the number one priority: survival. He travelled extensively, spending up to 90% of his time in tbose pre-freewaY years, moving from one town to the next, encouraging dealers to work together, discuss tfeir mutual problems and to just plain hang on until times got better.

It was tough and often discouraging work. The spirit of cooperation between dealers that manY take for granted today just wasn't present then. There were other problems. When Dee would organize an industry meeting in a town, some of the dealers wouldn't come to the meeting because theY couldn't afford the price of the meal, which was 500.

Then the controversial National Recovery Act was passed into law in 1933 as a result of Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous first 100 days ir: office. Soon all business in the United States was beipg done under the Blue Eagle tr'ademark of NRA.

Under NRA, the lumber industry, like other U.S. industries, had a code and a code authority that acted as a liaison between industry and government. The code attempted to enforce business

(Please turn to paget20)

ACTIVE and robusl at 80, Dee Essley is in the office almosl every day, while still devoting time to a wide variety of civic, social and charitable activities.

6(\Zou Gotta Know the I

Territory," is a line in the salesmen's song in the hit musical Music Man of about a decade ago and the words are just as true today as they were in the turn-of-thecentury America portrayed in the production.

A good case in point is the O'Malley BMC (for building materials center) in Mesa, Az., which is on the Eastern edge of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

A growing area, still sprinkled with open fields, it presently has a population of 85,000 with projections indicating a population of 100,000 by 1979, just five years hence.

While some of the new homes being built are moderately priced (a sliding term in today's world) many are expensive and the town has a sizeable slice of people with