GOODFELLOW CELEBRATES 125 YEARS IN BUSINESS

Chris Allinotte , WRLA

Goodfellow Inc. (GDL on the TSX stock exchange) has been a part of the lumber industry for 125 years. Started in Montreal in 1898 by George C. Goodfellow, the company has built a strong reputation based on service and great relationships with the manufacturing sector. While the company’s Quebec origins remain a defining part of the brand, the company today has 13 distribution centers across Canada, footprints in the United States and United Kingdom, sales of over $600 million per year, and employs over 600 people across all its businesses. WRLA sat down with some of the members of the Goodfellow team to find out more about the company’s history, the secret to its longevity, and the plans for the future.

Speaking with Mary Lohmus, Executive Vice President for Ontario and Western Canada, Olivia Goodfellow, Director of Marketing and Communications, and Wes Clifford, General Manager for Alberta and Saskatchewan, it became clear that the company’s history and consistent commitment to both their employees and their customer relationships have all been major contributors in Goodfellow’s longevity.

Mary, who has been with the company for the last 29 years, has watched the company grow firsthand. She started as the manager of timber and softwood lumber lines in the Campbellville operations centre. “I progressed through the organization as we grew at a super-fast rate here in Ontario in the 80s,” adding that the company’s expansion to B.C., Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon followed shortly after. In 2014, Mary accepted her current position, overseeing Ontario and Western Canada as Executive Vice President.

Bringing its established name out of Quebec and Atlantic Canada into Western Canada was a challenging task for Goodfellow, and required a lot of talent and expertise. Both Mary and Olivia noted that the markets in the prairies and beyond are vastly different from Eastern Canada. “Even within each province, there are different needs and ways of operating,” said Olivia, and gives Mary a lot of credit for managing the western branches into strong, successful locations, especially during the pandemic.

Olivia, coming to Goodfellow in 2021 from an already extensive career in marketing, enjoys the communications challenge that comes from managing the various Goodfellow brands and the diverse strategies necessary to take the different lines to market. “I usually say my job is Jack-of-all-Trades,” said Olivia with a laugh and went on to acknowledge the incredible team of sales specialists in the field that make it possible.

Wes Clifford’s Western Canada experience comes first-hand, having started out in the industry 30 years ago at lumber giant MacMillan Bloedel Lethbridge, Regina, and Saskatoon locations prior to the company being purchased by Weyerhaeuser in 1999. In 2002, he joined the Weyerhaeuser team in Calgary. Wes was still in Calgary in 2006 when he joined Goodfellow Inc. as an industrial outside sales rep. He remembers Goodfellow arriving in Calgary in 1995. Eventually, Wes’ career led him to become sales manager for the entire prairies before taking on his current role as General Manager, Alberta & Saskatchewan in 2017. For Wes, it’s the relationships he’s made during his time with Goodfellow that are the number one reason he enjoys working for the company. “It’s always been about the people,” says Wes. “It’s the people that I work with and our customers,” says Wes. “I have a lot of long-standing relationships with customers in the industry.” He also credits the stability of the company and the continuous opportunities for career growth along the way.

For a company celebrating 125 years, that flexibility and commitment to growth has helped Goodfellow remain competitive throughout the years and positioned the Company as an leader in the industry. While adding new product lines is something easy to put on paper, it’s quite another thing to implement successfully.

When speaking about this diversity of its product lines, the pride in the quality of the materials Goodfellow produces and distributes is apparent. Both Mary and Wes identified that the addition of siding products produced and shipped directly from the Calgary plant was a real turning point in getting the company established in the Prairies.

Wes recalled a meeting some years back when then-president Richard Goodfellow brought everyone together and informed the team that the company would be expanding its focus on flooring to include a more diverse building materials offering, and that the first new major line the company added was siding. Today, in addition to dedicated facilities at their main plant in Delson, QC, the Calgary operation offers a stocking program on popular pre-finished siding lines while maintaining the ability to deliver custom-finished material.

“We’ve diversified so much of our product offering,” said Olivia. “We still remain at the core very excited about the future of wood as a building material. But also, the demand and the innovation that’s coming out in terms of building materials.” As an example, she mentioned Fiberon composite decking. This 100% recycled wood and plastic composite product represents the company’s ability to deliver on the market’s demand for sustainable materials while still providing quality and innovation. “We evolve, but we’re still strongly committed to wood products that we manufacture and distribute.”

Another element of Goodfellow’s success in the West comes down to something that may seem mundane, but many WRLA members will know as the lifeblood of the industry— logistics and distribution. Wes pinpoints Goodfellow’s fleet as the reason that it has flourished in the Prairie market.

“In this business, if you’re not able to get your product to market in a timely fashion, you’re really going to struggle to grow,” said Wes, “And we recognized that pretty early on. We’ve had our own fleet of trucks since I started in 2006.” That ability to move products and the frequency with which the company found itself shipping to Saskatchewan led to the establishment of a dedicated distribution centre in Saskatoon in 2015. With such a strong product offering, and the vertical integration to control their own destiny, the final piece of the puzzle is the most important—the relationship between Goodfellow and their customers. One of the advantages to having established hubs across Canada is that the company has remained flexible and highly responsive both to market fluctuations, and to changing customer needs. That focus on customer service led Wes to bring Goodfellow into the ranks of Western Retail Lumber Association membership around the time he started, having come from another company that was affiliated with the WRLA and recognized the importance of our organization in providing exactly the kind of relationship-building opportunities that have allowed the company to flourish.

“It’s been a wonderful journey with the WRLA,” said Wes, pointing out that the western Goodfellow operations centres, particularly Calgary, have driven the company’s participation in the yearly showcase. “(The Showcase) brings all your customers and competitors together in one place in January, almost like a high-school reunion or a homecoming,” and added, “It’s always been the best opportunity to showcase what you’re able to do as a company.”

Those customer relationships have been at the forefront of Goodfellow’s 125 year celebration. While the teams across the country marked the occasion on a same-day, almost simultaneous party, the plans for the rest of this historic anniversary year include a variety of promotions and incentives for their customers.

With a regional and national management team as committed to the company’s success as each local team at Goodfellow, it’s easy to see how the business has grown from the single-location Montréal days to the nationwide organization that they are today, and we at WRLA definitely wish them continued success for their next 125 years!

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