From the ground uF, new distribution facility reflects careful planning

lf lstronS to the new All-Coast t Forest Products facility in Chino, Ca., are quickly struck with how far the industry has come in a relatively few years to today's stateof-the-art lumber distribution plant.

If you still tend to think in terms of dusty yards, pot holes and four man office shacks, you just haven't been paying attention. All-Coast's new plant cost nearly $3 million, sits on 20 acres and is literally designed from the ground up to perform its function.

Of its 20 acre site, 14 acres are paved, graded and planned to handle the heavy rains that periodically plague Southern California. More than $500,000 has been spent for soil preparation, grading and paving alone.

A low, 6,000 sq. ft. office building sits along the front side of the property, capped by a shingled,

Mansard roof and sporting diagonally placed cedar boards to accent the slumpstone columns placed periodically around the building.

Typical of the planning that went into the layout, the office building has all its plumbing and rest rooms at one end, so that a "flipped" or reverse version of the same building plan can be added later to tie into already existing plumbing at that end of the present structure. A 20,000 sq. ft. dry shed in the yard is similarly designed to accomodate an identical shed being added next to it.

A central area within the office building has the capacity to handle up to 10 l.c.l. salespersons and the office staffers to back up their efforts. Presently, there are l0 in the office force.

There are five, partially-open executive sales offices along one side of the building. They are occupied by the All-Coast Forest Products management staff, which consists of president Daryl Bond; Joe Tidwell, vice president; Jack Berutich, sales manager; Mike Tidwell, redwood division manager; and R.E. "Bud" Byard, a recent addition to All-Coast, who will be providing his considerable expertise to the firm's redwood sales and purchasing.

Other officers include comptroller Leon Lauderbach, who handles finance, office, credit and related activities. Bill Sharp is the operations manager and Don Merrick heads up a crew ofeight as yard superintendent. Inventory control and timber sales are handled by Warren Haskins and Richard Del Real.

All-Coast switched over to a larger capacity computer recently as their old IBM Systems 32 could only handle sales up to $40 million.

The new hardware, IBM Systems 34, will handle sales up to $100 million per year, a figure Daryl Bond expects the company to hit by 1979 or 1980.

The company maintains a large inventory of Canadian lumber and has a 1979 Canadian cargo goal of approximately l3 million feet per month or nearly $160 million on an annual basis. The cargo inventory breakdown runs approximately 500/0 green Douglas fir, 400/o green hem- lock with the remaining l0o/o in western red cedar. In addition to yard shipments All-Coast will continue selling truck and trailer and rail transits as well as direct mill shipments.

The primary sales thrust of the facility is in timber sales, saw sized, rough and surfaced, from 3x6 to 18x20, up to 40 feet long. The bal- ance of sales is projected to be in redwood and cedar fencing; "California Red,t' a redwood substitute made of mixed species that is pressure treated and colored; fascia items, and green Douglas fir yard items. The company also manufactures its own pine and spruce starterboard and decking.

( Please turn to page 34 ) l|EW G0ilPUTE[ {ll is IBM Systems 34, operator is Carolyn Jarrell. 0pen central area l2f contains desks lor salespeople. l3l One of All-Coast's new trucks faces stacks 0f neatly stacked lumber. lfl 8-car rail spur goes on property. l5l Mill building, with machinery installation nearing completion when these photos were taken. 16l T&T load of lumber (barely visible at rear) enters yard by office building. Huge cross section of redwood on lawn is 2300-2400 years old. Company name will eventually appear on it. t tlt0tt|f on Hwy. 99, the Modesto Lumber Co. still uses as its offices the building on the left, enlarged at least once, parts ol which date back many decades. lt also has three other yards in its county-wide territory.

A NB of the oldest retail lumber v companies in the West'has been taking note this year of an important milestone, their 100th year in business.

The Modesto Lumber Co., in the Central California town of the same name. is also remarkable for the fact that ownership is still in the same family as it was in the firm's earliest days.

Also very much intact is their century-old business philosophy.

According to one of the firm's top men, Clarkson Bradford, Jr., "We are strictly a service oriented operation, where personal attention and