Lou and Wanda Irion of Irion Lumber live on a homestead

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1 In Northern Pennsylvania, a Specialty Lumber Business Fills a Niche BY EILEEN TOWNSEND Lou and Wanda Irion of Irion Lumber live on a homestead in northern Pennsylvania s hills. The view from their home encompasses a wide vista of softly rolling hardwood forest. In early June, the landscape appeared dense with green foliage. Bright varieties of flowers sprouted around the Irion s home and neighboring lumberyard and small mill. Though the homestead is only a fraction of a mile off the highway, it feels far removed from the bustle of traffic. Over the past 20 years, the Irions have cultivated not only their home and gardens but a thriving specialty lumberyard that sells cuts of walnut, cherry and figure cherry, curly maple, mahogany, flame birch, and butternut. They stock their kilns and dry storage with a select inventory of wood. Irion Lumber deals in a niche market, catering to small shops that do custom millwork and furniture making. As is the case with many niche businesses, there was no blueprint for what Irion Lumber does; the company grew out of the Irion family s specific history. Lou and Wanda Irion didn t start out as the proprietors of a lumberyard and small mill. As a young man in the 1970s, Lou trained with his father as a colonial furnituremaker. His father ran a successful business in southern Pennsylvania, where he crafted chairs for the Kennedy White House, among other highend commissions. The walls of the Irion Lumber office show photographs of the classic furniture as it appeared in magazines The Baker mill that the Irions use to saw their lumber is not a high production mill, but it works perfectly for them. Inset: The Irion Lumber team.above, from left: Aubrey Irion, Wanda Irion, Myron Yoder, Lou Irion, Doug Simpson, and Jessie Simpson. THE NORTHERN LOGGER JULY

2 and brochures over the years. The finely crafted pieces exact reproductions, in many cases, of period furniture are deceptively seamless. Their simplicity of form almost hides the extreme attention to detail that went into their making. Lou initially partnered with his father in his shop, but when the elder Irion decided he wanted to go back to working alone and relocated to Delaware, Lou founded his own business. He met and married Wanda and she joined him in the work. We didn t take over his business, said Lou, but we started a business in an area where he d left a vacuum. We were a known entity there. We did a lot of repairing and refinishing. Our goal was always that we wanted to make furniture, but that s not easy. It takes a long time to get started. The shop grew and became successful. It was during these years that Lou first got his start in lumber. Initially, he d buy logs to be sawn for his and his father s company. Later, when he and Wanda went into business for themselves, they started buying tri-axles of logs. They considered the wood to be the center of the trade. Said Lou, We d look at old pieces and there was a lot of harmony in them because they were probably made from one tree in the 18th century. They didn t go to a mill that was cutting a million feet a year. We were competing against antiques and we felt that the wood was the place where we could really make a difference. The Irion s attention to the wood led them to take a risk and make a life-changing move. After years of sourcing lumber from northern Pennsylvania, the family (who, by this time, had two school-age children) decided to sell the furniture shop to employees and make a move north. They bought land near Wellsboro, PA in the mid-1990s, and started out with a blank slate, building their house while living in a trailer on the spacious property. At the same time, they founded Irion Lumber and began their new career in the forest products industry. They brought with them 15 tractor trailer loads of lumber and other merchandise, which Lou refers to as the seed corn of the new business. For Wanda Irion, the move made a lot of sense. Uprooting was a risk, but we were ready for a change, said Wanda. We d been in southeastern Pennsylvania and we were looking to move. It was getting more congested in the area we were in. We came up to this area to get lumber and that s how we found Wellsboro. The area is a lot like the area we were in in southeastern Pennsylvania before it started getting so built up. We like the wildness; we like the openness. They never looked back. Lou is a slight man with an easygoing manner and extremely particular habits, grown over a career of dealing with the details. Sitting in his longtime office, he spoke with the confidence of a business owner who has figured out what works for him. With five full time employees, Irion Lumber is a small operation. Lou and Wanda like it that way. We re really small and we want to stay small, said Lou. I ve got some really top-notch employees who all do their jobs, said Lou, who recently stepped down a year ago from his role as the President of Irion Lumber and promoted his longtime employee, Myron Yoder. I still continue to work here all the time, said Lou, but I m not really interested in the sales end. I m not really interested in all the computer WE D LOOK AT OLD technology and I m not really interested in all the battles with PIECES AND THERE WAS shipping companies. You reach a certain age I m 67 and you A LOT OF HARMONY IN really just don t have time for THEM BECAUSE THEY that anymore. Lou is still involved in most WERE PROBABLY MADE aspects of the operation, how- FROM ONE TREE IN ever: He runs the Baker sawmill, drives forklift, puts away the THE 18TH CENTURY. lumber ( I m very particular that the lumber be put away correctly ), helps with the stickering, and goes to the mills to buy lumber. This final task is one of his favorites. I love dealing with the guys who run the sawmills, said Lou. It is a much easier relationship when you are buying than when you are selling. When Lou and Wanda go to the mills, one of them will work on the grading chain for a day, examining the logs that come through and choosing the ones they like best. Asked how they go about procuring the selection of lumber, the Irions said that they simply do it in the most effective and productive way, whether that means buying logs, buying green lumber that is already sawn, or buying dry lumber. Said Lou, It s a real niche business and it s all about the highest-quality lumber. A sawmill does a sort for us and then we pay a significant premium to be able to pick it. And that way we don t get stuck with a lot of things that we can t use and there s really no way to market them in our business. This method may cost more up front, but they save on labor on the back end of the process. [Other operations] are going through this stuff and throwing out 1/3rd of it but taking the labor to cut it all up. We try to minimize that. Irion Lumber buys fine logs, but that doesn t mean that they are buying all veneer. Nobody can stay in business taking a veneer log and sawing it up into lumber, said Lou, but there are an awful lot of very good sawlogs out there, and we didn t need perfectly clear boards. So, Lou and Wanda looked for superior sawlogs and veneer rejects, logs with perhaps a bump on one side or a little metal in them. From these, they are able to cut to the specifications of their customer. They keep a large amount of inventory on hand, so that they are able to supply all of the specific lengths and dimensions needed for, say, a custom library or kitchen. Besides selling to people who do high-end millwork for specially-designed interiors, Irion has a core of customers who buy furniture wood from them. Furniture wood has to be cut and stored very specifically. People don t understand that, said Lou, and then a lot of people don t want to understand it, but that s what we did all along. Whereas many in the industry might find the level of micromanagement to be tiresome, it comes naturally to a family who were already in the furniture business. Said Lou, It s no different than if you re a chef and you ve got 20 different customers and this one doesn t want any gluten and this one doesn t want something else. We were used to that and it wasn t a big jump for us. At its core, their business is built on relationships. Because 28 THE NORTHERN LOGGER JULY 2018

3 Clockwise from the top: Myron Yoder, left, and Doug Simpson, longtime employees at Irion, go about their work. A large curly maple board with a unique figure. Wanda and Aubrey examine a recent purchase. The Irions used their fine woodworking skills to build their home. THE NORTHERN LOGGER JULY

4 Left: Myron Yoder waxes the ends of the boards in order to help preserve them during the drying process. Right: Lou with a sizable slab. the business is small and because they don t do volume, they are able to build long term relationships with mills, loggers, and individual customers. Said Lou, We have to build relationships with mills where they are willing to set aside and let you pick, and with loggers who are interested in working with you. There are loggers who have a real passion for wood. They like a little extra money, but they also like to see that the wood is being properly utilized. Then there are others for whom it is just a commodity. In addition to preferring the small size of their company, the Irions are adamant that they want to keep their business domestic. We sell a bit locally but 95% of our product is shipped. We ship all over the country and just a very little bit internationally. We re not in the export business and we really shy away from anything that goes on with trying to supply markets with what is basically commodity lumber. We want to stay domestic. We really firmly believe in a domestic economy. And we re scared about what is going to happen to the logging industry, said Lou. There are a lot of precedents for that fear. As was the case with any business that kept inventory, the financial crisis hit the Irions hard, especially in the furnituremaker market they sold to. We didn t see it coming, said Lou, and our business was off by about 35%. And when you re just going along paying stuff, that is a huge hit. We were working with a lot of furnituremakers in New England who would put in an order a month. None of them survived intact, at least as a larger shop. And our old shop is gone. Lou and Wanda s old furniture shop, which they d sold in the 1990s, closed after the financial crisis because of several factors: the economy crashed, the business experienced changes in ownership, and taste changed ( The antiques market took a huge hit because the taste changed, and people stopped buying it. They went towards modern types of furniture and Arts and Crafts style if they were buying at all. ) The fine woodworking industry nationally has struggled to reemerge. Irion Lumber stayed afloat despite the trouble. Said Lou, You re never alone in an economy; you always have competition. The two things we have going for us at least is that we have very experienced people working with wood. That s a real strength. The other strength is that we pretty much don t bring anything in that we can t pick ourselves, because that s pretty much the only way that we can maintain quality. And we pay a premium for that. But even if you re paying a 50% premium, it works out [because of the scale of the business.] Pennies make a huge difference in a volume business. The price of something goes up three pennies and people who do volume are jumping around. Irion Lumber has also figured out how to truck their product efficiently, in order to maximize quality and save labor. Said Lou, There are trucking companies that function like UPS. It s called LTL less than a truck load. So, what happens is that the truck comes in, we slide the lumber in, and off they go. But it is expensive the ship that way, so it is going to be 80 cents to $1.20 added to the cost of the lumber. You can t ship junk lumber. So, we re just really adamant [about quality.] Nobody can be perfect, but we really try to set a high standard for not only how we buy it but how we produce it. For buying and hauling lumber back to the yard, they own a semi-truck, driven by their 30-year old son, Aubrey, who has a big role in the company. After they procure the logs, they mill what needs to be milled on their Baker mill, a narrow band mill that Lou and Wanda say is, like the rest of Irion, just the right size. It doesn t need to go to a blade shop, said Lou. These blades run on a two-inch band which can be resharpened if you hit metal. It only costs about 30 dollars rather than $900 or $1200. When you set up a bigger mill you have a lot more expense and a lot more energy. Sometimes it is better to go smaller, to not produce as much but also not have the overhead. Much of the lumber is air dried, though some is kiln dried. Said Lou, We figure that if the wood is in a protected area and has the chance to dry slowly it is going to have fewer stresses in it. There are arguments on both sides, but the one thing 30 THE NORTHERN LOGGER JULY 2018

5 we do carry is a lot of inventory because that is the nature of our business. We have to have it, but we don t have the kiln capacity. Something like three quarter walnut will have to air dry for three years. It s very difficult to dry in a kiln. Asked whether it is difficult to break into a business that requires so much inventory kept on hand, Lou replied, Once you get ahead and you re buying and selling, it all works out. It s getting there that is hard. Each year you try to add a little bit more and you try to grow a bit more. As the afternoon wore on, Aubrey Irion returned to the yard with a load of logs. His dog, one of many wolfhounds and husky mixes that lounged around the property, rode with him. Aubrey is Irion s resident mechanic. He s selftaught, picking up machining and welding skills as needed. Along with his older sister, who also helps out around the homestead, he was raised in a way that many might find enviable: partially homeschooled and partially traditionally schooled, with ample time and space to follow his own interests. He has travelled the world, worked construction, and built his own home at the age of twenty. Today, he s a fundamental part of the Irion business. I ve been helping out since we were working in the furniture business, said Aubrey. My favorite part of it is being able to live in an area like this and make decent money and make your own schedule and be your own boss. That s pretty much invaluable. I really enjoy sawing lumber, especially some of the bigger logs that go for tabletops I also really enjoy the process of going out and looking for lumber. It s kind of a treasure hunt. Aubrey does a lot of driving. The decision to purchase the semi-truck came after he thoroughly wore out a pickup trying to bring home heavy loads of logs on a gooseneck trailer. I put three transmissions in it and then I finally ended up putting a 10-speed transmission in it out of a semi, which was a ridiculous task. It was just fitting two things that were never meant to go together. Then I blew out the read end. We were just outgrowing it I couldn t [use a pickup and trailer] anymore. The last two years that we ve had the truck we keep buying more and more lumber and logs, but my trucking has dropped by a third. Aubrey showed the logs he d brought home to Wanda, who carefully examined them while Lou said appreciatively, She has the best eye for logs in the whole business. Meanwhile, Myron Yoder and Doug Simpson got busy stickering and waxing a load of massive curly maple. Jessie Simpson, Doug s daughter, operated forklift. A FedEx carrier drove up in a truck and the crew lifted a load of lumber into it, to be shipped to a waiting customer. From the slow and steady pace of the afternoon, a passerby might not be able to perceive how much actually takes place at Irion Lumber. But anyone watching the Irions and their team, who work together with good humor and ease, would be able to pick up that the business is a labor of love. NL THE NORTHERN LOGGER JULY