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Plywood Annuql Touches All Bqses

(Continued from Page 2) talk by Los Angeles Dodgers vice-president, Fresco Thompson, who is in charge of all Dodgers organization scouts. He is the procurement man for the National League club.

Thompson advised the plywood men not to follow the baseball idea of paying every Tom, Dick and Harry a bonus to play ball. This alone is enough to break the camel's back, Fresco declared. He has spent more than 35 years in organized baseball and most of his life has been spent in the major leagues. His talk was both informative and humorous and he does a bang-up job in "selling baseball" in general and the Dodgers in particular.

A full schedule of speakers on Tuesdav included Henrv E. North, president, Arcadia Metal Products; John Ritchie, Allied Products director, Douglas Fir Plywood Association; Fred Phillips, secretary, Worker-Owned Plywood Association, and manager Bronson J. Lewis; Wm. F. Forrest, president, and John Dingley, secretary, Independent Plyvvood Manufacturers Association; T. J. Connelly, president, The Dean Company, who kept the rnembers in stitches for over 30 minutes; Robert Mason, plywood sales manager, Nickey Bros., and President Albert Hersh.

Addressing the association's 16th annual convention at the Hotel del Coronado, Owen Cheatham attributed recent industry problems in part to the general recession, but more to "grorving pains of the nation's fastest growing industry."

"Plywood has a remarkable record for creating satisfied customers and has shown a 2}-fold market increase in 20 years," Cheatham said, "but plywood production has spurted ahead even faster than demand." Manufacturers. he wlrned. must learn to curb their appetite for production in terms of demand for their product.

Cheatham praised the manufacturers' product research, quality control, and consumer education, and recommended their continuation.

The Georgia-Pacific executive urged manufacturers to maintain "proven orderly distribution patterrrs." and sug- gested that one way they might possibly further help themselves could be the development of mill storage facilities to pe.1mi! greater flexibility in manufacturing operations. Most mills have little if any storage facilitiei fbr the finisheil product and are consequently often under pressure to ship each day's production as produced. He observed, hou'evei,

It's the FOLLOW-THROUGH THAT MAKES THE DIFFENENCE!

that the accumulation of substantial excess finished inventory in such warehouses would defeat the objective. '

Distributors were urged by Cheatham to avoid speculation on buying-to get their profits from selling, not from buying. Also they were urged to support and extend the manufacturers' advertising and educational efforts to create bigger plywood markets.

"We are nearing a population and demand-for-goods in-