Retailer's sawmill rises from the ashes

Mill, Snohomish, Wa., in late 1996 was the first test of the family's resolve. The rough winter that followed wasn't exactly a respite either. Far from it. Two feet of snow fell in December alone. The following months brought torrential rains that produced flooding that ruined scores of buildings and homes.

"They were tough times for our business, definitely," recalls Eric Fritch, president and general manager of the business, which also operates four retail yards. "My brother Bruce was president of the mill at the time and I was running Chinook Lumber, which is the retail side of the business. Mom and dad founded the mill in 1950, so you could say that we all grew up with sawdust in our veins."

The former Washington State graduate and ex-Boeing engineer further revealed that he had gone into retail because he didn't see himself as being "a desk bound" sort of guy for a large corporation. "Retail just had an allure for me and being that I knew the lumber business from my work in the family mill, opening up a retail site seemed like the natural thing to do."

According to Eric, the fire and subsequent winter storms took their toll on Bruce Fritch's patience. "My brother had taken over the mill from my parents in 1976. He'd seen the operation grow and worked hard to help make that a possibility. After all of the work that he had put into the business, he just did not feel uP to having to rebuild it. His heart just wasn't in it. The cost was going to be high and the amount of work involved in rebuilding (the mill) was just too much. He would have liked to have sold what was left of the mill operation and moved on."

Bruce's exasperation was further put to the test by a local zoning law that prohibited another party other than a Fritch from owning and operating the business. "Where we're located is not the sort of place that one expects to find a mill," Eric states. "We have grandfathered zoning in a rural residential area and can operate as a sawmill or develop the land for houses."

Faced with this last obstacle, Bruce offered to sell the business to Eric. "I wasn't exactly a stranger to the mill," Eric asserts. "I'd put myself through college working there, so I knew the ropes. Besides, I'd been working in the retail operation for 10 years." He further noted that he liked the challenge of rebuilding and revitalizing the family business.

Almost immediately, Eric accepted his brother's offer and officially took over his current position in July, 1997. As expected, rebuilding wasn't easy, but Fritch remained determined. "We did have several advantages in our favor that allowed us to avoid further disaster," he states. "We got the planer mill up and going pretty fast, and over the next few months we added a unit saw for pre-cutting and a twin-band resaw for large cants. So, we were able to generate income from custom and secondary manufacturing."

In time, the mill would come to average 600,000-700,000 feet of wood per month. Several months even even dream of." saw production of 1 million feet. As expected, Fritch was delighted. "Coming from a retail way of thinking, I saw the mill as a way to augment the retail side of our business, to become more vertically integrated. We have four retail sites. The original location is in Clearview. This is our main retail site. the hub of that side of the business. Our other locations are all North and East of Seattle. I figure that 50Vo of the mill's work is for our retail locations. Right now, we have about four to six weeks of on-site work here in the mill. That's the most we've had for quite some time, so you can see how the business has picked up. We are building a strong niche and doing things Home Depot can't

The other three retail sites are located in Monroe. North Bend and Woodinville. The Woodinville location deals primarily in closeout and liquidation lumber, hence the name, Chum Lumber Division.

"If you know anything about salmon fishing, you'll understand the significance of the names." Fritch laughs. "A Chinook is considered the best of the salmons, while the Chum is looked down on as being less than desirable."

Depending upon the time of year, Fritch Mill employs nine workers, while a staff of 45 services the retail locations.

Fritch cites Chinook's diverse product mix as the reason why the business has been successful over the years. "We're known as a business that carries a lot of hard-tofind timbers and beams," he says. "I felt it was important to have manufacturing capabilities for such items, and to keep the prices reasonable and our margins intact."

As for the future of the industry, Fritch admits that he is optimistic, but still unsure as to what may lie ahead. "There's been a strain in remanufac- turing lately," he says. "More mills are doing more in-house jobs than before and not farming out much. We're quite busy though, so hopefully things will remain on an upswing. I'm grateful for the outpouring of support from customers as well as from competing mills. That's what makes me proud of our industry."