Earf Hoffman, Plf*nad Pataep,t Refbra lrr".- Buztittp-t4

This is a story about Earl Hoftman, of Los Angeles, who has just announced his retirement from active business. He is still in the prime of his life apparently, possessing all his rugged strength and health. He has worked long and hard in the lumber and associated industries, and he suddenly decided that he has earned a rest, and so he has started taking it. Well equipped with this world's goods, it looks like the big, likable Hofiman has a lot of good times and interesting life ahead of him. The writer of this piece tips his hat to his old friend. Few men possess so much wisdom, as to retire and start playing while still able to enjoy the fruits of their toil.

The bulk of this story is going to concern Earl Hofiman's pioneer days in the Douglas Fir plywood industry. He spent his boyhood days in Chicago, came to California at an early age, and in 1911 we find him selling sash and doors to the retail trade for the W. P. Fuller Company. That makes him a real pioneer in that industry in this territory. He was always, and still is, a whale of a mixer, and a most accomplished salesman, lovable, dependable, full of fire and power.

In 1919 he settled in Los Angeles and established his own firm, the Earl Hoftman Company, wholesale lumber and other wooden commodities. In 1925 the manufacture of Douglas Fir plywood really began in the Pacific Northwest, though in a very small way. Plywood making was comparatively crude. The manufacture and improvement of the vital glues that make plywood possible, and likewise the mechanical creation of the board was something that took many years to bring to present perfection.

But Earl lfoffman was a man of vision. Perhaps no man anywhere looked upon that early plywood, and saw its future possibilities more clearly than Earl Hoffman. Result, in the late twenties we find this big, smiling, gogetter engaged in the plywood business. He fixed up a trailer to'haul back of his car, and he arranged the trailer to carry samples of this entirely unknown wooden board. And he started calling on the retail lumber trade in Southern California, showing and talking and selling Douglas Fir plywood. Only the name was different. He went up to Tacoma and made a deal with some of the early manufacturers of the board, and they sold and shipped him supplies of same. He opened a small ware,house in Los Angeles to store the product. He sold it to the trade, and delivered it from his warehouse.

It was not Douglas Fir plywood then. It was Hoffco Wood Board, as he called it, naming his particular board after the Hoffman Company. Later he got to calling it Fir Wallboard. But he showed it to the entire lumber and building trade of Southern California, and he boosted it as only he could. His friends tell wonderful stories about his early experiences with the board. He always carried a sample board into the office of his prospective buyer, and demonstrated it. In one place he stood the board against the wall, failing to notice that there was a heating unit behind it. As he sat talking to the lumber dealer they heard a cracking sound. The sample board was coming apart, separating as the heat melted the old-fashioned glue. Another time he was telling a lumber dealer how strong the board was. To demonstrate, he kicked his sample as it leaned against the wall. He gauged his distance and power incorrectly. His foot went through the board. They didn't make cores in those days like they do now. Those are only two of the scores of things that happened to this original plywood salesman and enthusiast, as he went about through the highways and the byways, proving himself-as we look back at it now-to be one of the most practical pioneers in what was to become a mighty industry.

It might be safe to say that Earl Hofiman had the Fir plywood vision that few others of that time possessed. Men of vision are few in this world where most men are strong on hind-sight, but weak or missing on foresight. As Bing Crosby once remarked: "Some got it-some ain't got it." Earl Hoffman had it.

His reputation as a Fir plywood man spread, and in 1931 we find the M and M Wood Working Company making a deal with him whereby he was placed in charge of all their sales of plywood, doo.rs, and lumber, in all the states west of the Mississippi River. That arrangement continued until 1948, when it was severed. The Earl Hofiman Company remained alive all that time, and in 1948 Mr. Hoffman made a deal with James B. ("Jim,,) Magee, by which the latter became a full partner in the company, taking over a full share of the work of operating a business that was making a tremendous success.

And now, on September first, 1950, Earl Hofiman retires from the business he has been operating for 31 years. As this is written he and his wife are touring Alaska, while they decide what other parts of the world deserve their interest and attention. Both of them love to travel, and for some time to come they propose to see the places and things they have longed for.

The Earl Hoffman Company has been liquidated, and a new company of the same name has been organized as a partnership by Jim Magee, and the business carries on just as it'has been doing. Jim is in charge in Los Angeles, at the company office at 6N7 South'La Brea Avenue. Bob Wells continues to cover the Los Angeles territory, Gus Fusari continues in the San Diego territory, while Jim Magee's father, Capt. W. A. Magee, retired, covers Northern California out of his home in San Jose. Office work is handled at Los Angeles by Frances Qualey and June Coon.

That's the set-up. Jim Magee has made nothing but friends since he joined Earl Hoffman just a couple of years back. The world-renowned flyer has made good as a lumber salesman, and he promises to carry on the same type of wholesale lumber business and give the same superior brand of service they have been giving.

While Earl Hoffman-bless his old soul-steps high; a free man.