Friendly Portnership PIus Pretty Girl Equols Retoil Success

"Experience is a man's best friend" these days when .it comes to a volume retail-lumber operation. Without the store "up front" with its costly, but high markup, inventory, the lumber business at best is a highly specialized and tricky beast. But in less than six months, Palo Alto Lumber Company has wound up from a dead stop to a position of importance in the field of volume-lumber distribution, thanks to an "everyone works" experienced partnership.

The partnership is that of John Tietjen, Al Hill, Bill Gretz and Francis N{prphy, all former co-workers at McElroy Lumber Company, where they logged a total of better than 50 years of lumber experience.

The budding partnership was formed early this year when the opportunity developed to acquire a 3-acre site formerly operated by Traynor & Silver at 4173 El Camino Real in Palo Alto. Conversion from a principally do-ityourself operation was pretty well taken care of a month earlier when fire completely destroyed Traynor & Silver's "up-front" showroom and store. However, the yard, with its storage shed and small planing mill, escaped damage; all it needed was inventory and experience, and that's where the Tietjen-Hill-Gretz-Murphy trust came in.

Yard entrance is iust off the busy El Camino Real (but we can't guarantee a pretty gal waiting for you EVERY time). Shed storage runs length of North boundary; yard storageto South.

Al Hill is on the lift making ready to move some long lengths to the company truck for job delivery

Faci ities also include small planing mlll. Here again, whether it be operatingthe lift, making a delivery or running the mill, all the partners are fullyqualified and work with the zeal that can only come from ownership steel clearspan storage shed has two entrances, stand-up racks at one end and unitlzed storage at tar end

With a host of friends in Peninsula building circles, the partnership began shipping a few loads out even before Palo Alto Lumber's official opening date on January 18. Since then, the sales curve has been making like a Thor missile (on a good shot, that ir) and it doesn't look like they've even exhausted the first stage yet !

More important, everybody's got the know-how, and everybody works in this partnership. Nobody's "boss" (unless it might be Elise Lewis, one-time secretary to former Redwood Sales-chief Dave Davis; she joined the partnership a few months after its starting date). Everyone works with the confidence that can come onlv from vears of experience in the field.

'Tietjen's partners, all former McElroy men, include Bill Gretz, a l0-year man with McElroy; Francis Murphy, who logged over 2l years with that firm, and Al Hill, with five years to his credit, plus a couple of years with the old Traynor & Silver operation. Dealer Tietjen, himself, spent over 2l years with McElroy and was purchasing agent when the fine old firm consolidated last year and shut its doors in San Mateo, where Tietjen was headquartered.

Inside the partners' office there hangs a sign which pretty well sums it up. The sign (one of those popular off-beat jobs) states: "Anyone who likes work will sure have a h-uva good time around here."