The northeast Iowa company runs the largest producing sawmill in the state on a 33-acre site in the small town of Edgewood. The company produces green and dry lumber, veneer logs, railroad ties and mulch from more than a dozen tree species, including the prized American black walnut, and sells lumber domestically and internationally to 22 countries.

The company’s sawmill and woodworking facility has even become a tourist destination in the area so visitors can receive a guided tour, complete with headsets to hear their guide and use as hearing protection, and can see how logs are transformed into finished products.

But what’s top of mind these days? Giving people hope at a time when they need it most.

“When things started closing down and people were getting worried because they didn’t know what to expect, we wanted to spread positivity,” says Rhonda Kendrick, who has owned the family business with her husband Tim since 1983. They’re the second generation to take the reins.

The couple’s four adult children – Morgan, Andrea, Kirby and Kerra – are also at the heart of the extended family of relatives and employees who operate Kendrick, Inc.

“We started to print yard signs with messages like, ‘We’re all in this together’ and put them in our yards and our friends’ yards,” she says.

Soon the Kendricks had donated a dozen signs to each of the surrounding communities – and started making custom yard signs for people who wanted to share the sentiments on their own lawns, including birthday and graduation celebrations.

The company is also helping seniors in long-term care homes who have been isolated by the pandemic, by donating handcrafted wood art signs for birthday gifts and prizes for bingo wins. “That’s been a really fun thing to do to let these people know they’re not forgotten. There’s a lot to be said for giving back,” Rhonda says.

And giving back is a long-held Kendrick tradition.

For instance, the company helped set up a daycare so working parents could access quality care for their kids. The team also sponsors the local fair and hosts social barbecues. For Edgewood’s annual Rodeo Days celebration in June, the Kendrick, Inc. team is front and center with one of the largest floats in town.

Don Kendrick Sr. started the business in the 1950s and continued to run it until the late 1970s. After being owned by someone outside the family for several years, his sons took the business back over in 1983. At the time, they were just two young loggers with a truck, but Kendrick, Inc. has always had big aspirations.

Since coming back into the family, the company has grown from 12 to 156 employees (the largest employer in town), and has earned a reputation for high-caliber workmanship and using every part of the log – and that means every part. Even the sawdust left over from milling is burned to heat the dry kilns and generate electricity for part of the facility.

Kendrick, Inc. has also diversified in recent years by adding four companies to the mix: Forever Cabinets by Kendrick designing and producing fine custom cabinetry; Shimlee, an online personalization company where people upload their photos and they are printed on wood – or they can design their own custom wood signs; The Markket, a two-story retail store and showroom and Iowa tourism destination; and Kendrick Home, which designs and produces a line of wood decor sold by retailers throughout the U.S.

“We’ve been working a lot more closely with our mom-and-pop shop retailers; knowing how COVID has changed their business, we are trying to find ways to help them,” says Rhonda’s daughter Morgan Christen, Marketing Director and Human Resources Manager.

“This has been a difficult time. When they couldn’t be open, our Kendrick Home team helped them set up online sales, and created unique pieces to draw people to their store when they were able to open.”

In fact, Kendrick, Inc. has made headway during the pandemic, expanding its workforce as demand – especially for its wooden sign products – has surged. Wood is a renewable resource that brings a sought-after beauty and warmth to furnishings – and who wouldn’t want some uplifting typography on their walls right about now? “Life is better when we’re together” and “Live for the moments you can’t put into words” are sunny reminders that life is worthwhile, no matter what adversity comes your way.

As Rhonda says, “Home is like a safe retreat, now more than ever. When people can’t go out and spend money on vacations and things, they can make themselves happy with a new piece of art at a relatively inexpensive price so they don’t break the bank.”

She is proud to say how well Kendrick, Inc. has weathered the pandemic, being diligent about health and safety for employees and customers, and being flexible for staff who are also parents, juggling work and the demands of online schooling for their kids.

“Everyone has different fears and beliefs on how things should be handled,” Rhonda adds, “so we’re working together to get through this because we can get through it.”

She says that marrying into the sawmill business and working alongside her husband all these years has been an advantage. “I hear so many people say, ‘how can you work with your spouse?’ Well, I love it. I really do enjoy working with him. We’re not sitting across from a desk all day, each day, but at night when we get done working, we can talk about things. It’s just a lot of fun.” Retiring from the business isn’t even really on the radar because Rhonda and Tim live next to the mill.

The tree symbol, found on every Kendrick Home product, emphasizes the company’s commitment to protecting the environment and living sustainably. The lumber industry is really about good forest management – harvesting the trees for healthier forests and clearing the dried wood to protect against wildfires.

“Since we do have all four of our kids in the business, I feel like we have a vested interest in keeping the trees sustainable so they are there for future generations,” says Rhonda. “We also own timber ground and the kids are always out in the timbers. The trees are such a big part of our life.”

The company’s foundation truly is rooted in family, which makes the tree illustration in the Kendrick Home logo so fitting – a strong family tree that will nurture the business for the generations to come.

The post This Family Timber Business Puts Hope on Your Wall<p class="company">Kendrick, Inc.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

This exceptional company is a premium, mid-size lumber pioneer that supplies homeowners and contractors via independent retail lumber yards and farm supply stores throughout the northeast – all from its state-of-the-art facility in Madison, Virginia. Trusted since 1959 by some of the biggest names in lumber retail industries, this team player simply delivers the best products, service, and customer care.

At Madison Wood, superior lumber is sourced from the best mills in the United States, after which it is pressure treated on site with eco-friendly preservatives in high-pressure chambers before being shipped to clients.

The team’s relationship with customers does not end once a sale is closed. Madison Wood is as thoughtful as it is thorough. Generous with expert advice, information, and education on its products’ uses, installation, and maintenance.

As lumber and other wood products are increasingly available online, separating the chaff from the good stuff using photographs can be difficult. Madison Wood goes the extra mile to ensure that clients make informed purchasing decisions driven by in-depth knowledge rather than initial capital outlay alone. According to the company’s expert team, when treated lumber comes cheaper at the outset, it often turns out to be pricey in the long run with an unusable product coming to light once it arrives on the job site.

Madison Wood’s singular facility packs a punch with the capacity to treat over one million board feet per day. While acquisitions and mergers are trending among the current high demand, this team has taken the long-term, and surer, approach of growing its capabilities, efficiency, safety, and automations within its facility.

It’s a simple creed – “It’s not the size of the company that’s important, but the size of its capabilities.” In fact, Madison Wood’s startling ability to provide clients with a level of service that simply outdoes many bigger competitors resides in its size. By leveraging this very strength, the company has carved out a strategic growth plan second to none.

The COVID-19 crisis left no stone unturned, affecting the lumber industry as catastrophically as it did many others. The team’s solution was to stimulate growth through meticulous customer demand planning and by continuously adapting to the new market reality.

Thanks to the company’s commitment to maximizing its capabilities, the twists and turns of the current economic downturn have found it ready for action.

Despite ongoing pandemic uncertainties and widespread lumber shortages, the team secured the lumber it needed to match 2019 sales and more. In May 2020, as retailers scrambled to stock up on supplies, sales soared to unsustainable levels over previous years.

Working quickly, the team developed a system to fairly distribute stock amongst its existing clients according to average past sales. In this way, the company prevented any single dealer from cornering over-large amounts of product, assuring its regular customers a continuing supply and uninterrupted access to premium quality treated lumber.

This approach not only bought the team time to source more lumber, it also secured the continued support of long-standing customers. The plan enabled the company to guarantee customers a set price when they ordered, to offer an average three-week lead time or less, and to ship what was originally ordered with each shipment processed.

This decisive action stands in stark contrast to many competitors’ non-committal pricing that typically uses the ‘priced at time of shipment’ (PTS) model, driven mainly by the sharp rise in the price of lumber occasioned by longer lead times. Poor inventory management often resulted in last-minute changes to orders due to shortages.

“It is this company’s job to consistently uphold our customers’ reputation by producing quality products they can depend on. We want the buying of treated lumber to be the easiest and most worry-free segment of their day,” says Kari Gaviria, Vice President of Sales.

During this time of lumber shortages, Madison Wood’s clients have particularly favored its SelectDeck™ 2×6, a versatile decking alternative of an almost clear C-Grade wood that is manufactured with kerfs to reduce warping, a natural characteristic of southern yellow pine and wood in general.

But it isn’t just Madison Wood’s products and internal systems that are always being upgraded. In the past three years, Madison Wood has also improved its nearly 4.5-acre under-roof storage facility that keeps all its wood looking as fresh and clean as the day it was milled. And, true to the company’s culture, technology updates are always underway. The team recently introduced a new automation suite to its production line. “It can lay out tasks to be completed using prior sales and efficiency tactics as guidelines,” says Gaviria. The system will soon become an integral part of the entire facility.

Also unveiled was a new, proprietary tracking system, MADtrak®, which enables any top client – referred to as a “Blue Diamond Dealer®” – to track live shipments in real-time with fantastic ease.

However, there are many aspects to rendering and delivering the best-treated lumber on time.

One of these is that high demands require laser-focused logistics planning, with members of the team having to think on their feet. Prior to signing any new deals, the company ensures that it has a reliable transportation provider to run the route. Madison Wood devotes considerable energy to securing solid partners who will carry its loads safely and deliver on time.

Adapting to the challenges of COVID-19 is not the company’s only current driver of change. After 40 years with Madison Wood, President Steve Lillard will be relinquishing his role as President of the company on December 31, this year.

“After graduating with a degree in forestry I started at Madison Wood driving a forklift back in 1981,” he says. “It has been a wild ride full of meaningful partnerships, detailed collaboration, and teamwork. I have decided at the end of this year that I will be stepping down as president. This industry is ready for the next generation of leadership and I cannot wait to see what the future brings for this company.”

His official retirement from office will be followed by a year or two in which he will continue acting as an advisor to the team. “Madison Wood Preservers has a facility that is still the most up-to-date treating facility in the world,” he says. “I think it is time for new talent to come in with the succession – people like Brad Knighting and Kari Gaviria – to take us to levels that a person of my age may not be able to reach.”

He is pragmatic about the large change that awaits. As retail sectors have growing numbers of younger people entering the job market, creating the need for a younger generation of service providers and a refreshed supplier/client interface that they can relate to, Lillard sees the step as timely.

“The innovation that they bring with them will be critical to the success of the company,” he says.

Bill Price concurs. “There’s a saying that old age and wisdom will overcome youth and enthusiasm every day. We’re in a situation where we have old age and wisdom and youth and enthusiasm running the company. That is the absolute best of both worlds.”

When it comes to its team, there is no end to the leaders’ praises. “We’re convinced that we have the best team in the industry,” says Brad Knighting, Vice President of Purchasing.

This sentiment is reflected in the fact that not even one of the company’s 105 staff members were laid off due to the virus. When asked about morale, Knighting is particularly proud. “Most importantly, we have a bunch of self-motivated people. People that are interested in being their very best and being part of a successful program,” he says.

The company ensures that its people are well remunerated. This culture of caring is one of its greatest forms of support for the entire team. “There’s a lot of respect and comfort in working with each other – we all know we’re here for the company’s best interests. I think we unite on that front,” says Knighting.

It’s apparent that Madison Wood’s entire team worked with great gusto to pull the company through this uncertain time in world history. Accountability and team effort especially are two game-changing traits of this company’s equitable organization, and staff members are motivated to take on a diversity of roles to help people invest in their own and the company’s future success.

Madison Wood also cultivates its future leaders with much care and dedication through programs like MADskillz and other educational activities that keep employees up to date with both the company’s and the entire industry’s latest best practices.

Despite universal challenges, trade has evolved over the past two years as demand for treated lumber rocketed. Many of Madison Wood’s new clients are retailers, tired of second-rate service and seeking to benefit from its meticulous customer care and excellent products. And meanwhile, according to Gaviria, demand for quality lumber and related wood products continues to rise despite freezing winter temperatures and very high prices.

Blessed with the go-getting spirit that’s so typical of the company, Kari Gaviria brought home the sought-after Pro Sales 4 Under 40 Award in 2020. She also became a proud member of two of the American Wood Protection Association’s (AWPA) committees, followed by her well-deserved promotion to Vice President of Sales in December last year.

It will take some time before bulk lumber suppliers are out of the woods, but the company remains confident. “2020 brought forth many lessons that made us stronger. That being said, we expect that the trends continue throughout the third quarter of 2021,” says Knighting.

Moving ahead with sustainable annual growth, Madison Wood will continue to measure its success by the volume of consistent return customers it generates. “In an age of consolidation, we wish to remain a company large enough to compete but small enough to care,” says Price. “One thing is for certain; our products, service, and facility will remain at the forefront of the treated industry for years to come.”

All considered, the indicators are clear. Leading the way with impeccable preparation, Madison Wood Preservers is set to surpass its goals in the year ahead and beyond.

The post Delivering Superior Treated Lumber<p class="company">Madison Wood Preservers</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

A veteran of a demanding and crucial industry, Dubey, the charismatic chief executive officer and president of Specialty Technology and Research, Inc. (familiar to its many customers as STAR Inc.), never ceases to be amazed and gratified by the creativity, integrity, and vision of his staff and licensees worldwide.

“We are always looking for new ideas, and seeing what we can do that is new and exciting for the industry with our products and our technologies,” says Dubey. “I love working with all the members of the STAR family. “It’s a very cohesive group of people who have impeccable integrity in the way they run their businesses, and the services they provide to their customers,” he says. “People in the STAR family are professionals through and through. They run their businesses meticulously, and they look out for each other. And,” he reflects, “that’s the core of me showing up in the office every day after running this company for so long.”

Headquartered in Columbus, Ohio’s state capital, STAR in North America has grown significantly over the years in both domestic and international markets. Founded in 1986 and built upon Dubey’s many years of pavement industry knowledge and technical experience, the company today has 15 licensee plants in the contiguous U.S. and boasts its three international plants – in Australia, China and India – and full-line distributors in Mexico and Chile.

Friendly to users – and the environment
Over the decades, STAR Inc. has emerged as a pre-eminent manufacturer of sealcoating products for the pavement maintenance industry. Since inception in America in the fifties, sealcoatings have become a popular and highly effective way to protect and preserve asphalt surfaces in areas ranging from residential driveways, airports, and low to medium traffic roads to large commercial parking lots.

Over the decades, the sealcoating industry has steadily advanced, taking advantage of the evolving technologies and materials. STAR has been a forerunner in the industry in its efforts to stay on the cutting edge of the sealcoating technology, while propagating the knowledge about their value and relevance. Although the inception was based on sealers made with refined tar, newer generations of sealcoatings have been developed over the decades, which are safer to use and boast minimal or no impact on the environment.

As a safer, cleaner alternative, Dubey and his team formulated STAR-TRITON®, a bold new line of products which are better, safer for sealcoating professionals, but also exceptionally durable and able to boost the life of pavement by 300 percent or more. Resistant to harsh weather, rain, snow, salt and gasoline, the product is not only long-lasting and attractive but also economical, costing about one-third the price of a new installation.

Released about five years ago, STAR-TRITON is one of two-dozen quality products made by the company. On par with refined coal-tar sealers (RTS), it has proven itself to be even better than asphalt emulsion-based sealcoatings (AE) at resisting petrochemicals and other potentially damaging substances.

“It’s more user-friendly and environmentally friendly,” says Dubey of STAR-TRITON, which is water-based, non-burning, and has minimal odor compared to older RTS products on the market. In fact, most STAR customers switched from RTS to STAR-TRITON overnight. “It’s an outstanding alternative for refined coal-tar products.”

As well as producing STAR-TRITON, the company is behind other unique and long-lasting sealcoatings, crack fillers, traffic paints, specialty products, additives, primers, and concrete products.

Another starring role
Introduced to the market around 2015 – at the same time as STAR-TRITON – is STAR SPECTRUM®. A revolutionary new type of color coating for pavements, STAR SPECTRUM is heralded as belonging to “a new generation of pavement maintenance products,” according to the people at STAR, and for good reason.

Made from quality materials including colorfast pigments, performance boosters, minerals, and specialty additives, STAR SPECTRUM is a 100 percent acrylic latex polymer-based coating that protects paved surfaces from inclement weather, chemicals, and much more. Available in a rainbow of vibrant standard and custom colors, STAR SPECTRUM is ideal for safety, traffic delineation, corporate identity, and other applications. Providing supreme durability, the line is also non-hazardous, making it well-suited to playgrounds and other public areas.

Best known for its many sealcoating product lines, STAR also manufactures products specifically for concrete, including MACRO-DECK®, which effectively protects concrete against damage from the elements and chemicals. Formulated with acrylic polymers and specialty chemicals, MACRO-DECK is well-suited to resist salt, and ideal for everything from concrete bridges to support structures, highway dividers and other concrete surfaces. The MACRO-DECK product line is complemented with other quality concrete products such as STAR® ARMOUR-GUARD™, STAR-CRETE ACID-ETCH, STAR-CRETE ACRYLIC LATEX CONCRETE STAIN and STAR-CRETE STAR PRISM – a clear concrete-penetrating sealer,

Superior quality
Categorized as an essential industry because of the need for ongoing infrastructure maintenance, STAR Inc. hasn’t slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic. And while some segments in the industry may have slowed down due to supply issues, STAR hasn’t had any such problems. “The main reason is that the raw materials we’re using are all indigenous,” says Girish. “Nothing is imported, and that could affect the supply chain.”

The hallmark of STAR’s prominence is its commitment to Research and Development, taking advantage of emerging technologies, quality control and assurance for consistency in performance. All R & D and quality assurance functions are carried out at STAR’s headquarters in Columbus, OH.

STAR Technology Licensing Program – the key to growth
Uniquely, STAR is the sole American company offering independent business people the technology-licensing opportunities to manufacture sealcoatings.

“Our technology-licensing program is quite unique and highly cost-effective when compared to a typical run-of-the-mill franchise program,” say the people at STAR. “We allow our licensees to grow in their business environments with the least amount of restriction on their business activities, as long as they conform to the quality standards of our sealcoatings.” STAR works exclusively through its licensee plants who manufacture sealcoatings and supply other STAR plants in their respective regions.

STAR’s Technology Licensing Program has been the main avenue for growth since its inception in 1986. STAR has a very conservative approach in selecting the licensees. In addition to their experience and background, STAR licensees must have impeccable integrity and a commitment for serving the pavement maintenance industry. In 2017 and again in 2018, the company welcomed new licensees to the STAR family. At present, STAR is working on several manufacturing opportunities in both domestic and international locations, and exploring other growth avenues.

More than products
A great believer in the quality of his company’s products, President and CEO Dubey also strongly believes in educating customers about the science behind sealcoatings and other products for the sole purpose of empowering them to select the right products. Dubey believes that an educated customer is a dedicated customer, and has published numerous articles in trade magazines over the past decades.

Through its YouTube channel, the company promotes Triton, Macro-Fast, Macro-Flex, and other items. Along with a growing presence on social media sites, the company’s well-established website – containing a wealth of information including downloadable product descriptions, technical data sheets, source books and more – is undergoing a redesign.

“We are going through a complete makeover of the website,” Dubey says, “and we’ll be including more videos to make it helpful for contractors as well as property owners with regard to product application, selection of the materials, and so on.” Additional informative videos are still being worked on, but the new site will be up by this spring.

For Dubey, who was inducted into the Pavement Hall of Fame in 2019, the sealcoating industry is both a profession and a passion.

Holding Master’s Degrees in Inorganic Chemistry, a degree in Polymer Chemistry, and years of hands-on experience, Dubey has been an integral part of the sealcoatings industry since the early Seventies. After all these years, he still welcomes each new morning, eagerly anticipating the day’s work with his clients and other members of the STAR family.

The post Founded on Knowledge and Integrity<p class="company">STAR Inc.</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

This company offers cross-border refrigerated truckload transport, intermodal/container, and brokerage duties services. While focused on keeping its employees COVID-19-free, Seafood Express Transport is eager to expand its capabilities and geographic reach. The company has also become an industry leader in promoting wellness and diversity.

Despite the firm’s name, “Seafood is only a small percentage of what we haul these days. We haul mostly fresh and frozen food products now… A lot of potatoes and some fish during certain seasons, then everything from produce to fruit and vegetables,” explains Andy Keith, who recently took over from his father as company president.

About ninety-five percent of the company’s loads are transported in refrigerated trailers with a “very small portion of dry freight,” he continues. Seafood Express Transport works with “the big grocers within Canada, the big box stores within Canada… we also do a lot of work with potato brokers on the island.” In addition to food, the company hauls beverages, medicine, tissue paper, and pharmaceutical supplies such as vials and test tubes.

Its container operations involve roughly ten to fifteen trucks and cover both imports and exports. Seafood Express Transport will deliver loaded containers to piers to be loaded on ships or transport containers from ships to inland customers.

In addition to its headquarters, the company operates a maintenance facility with three drive-through bays and a drive-through wash station. Trucks are kept in optimal running condition, with new vehicles constantly added to the fleet.

“Our trucks and trailers have a certain lifespan, and it’s kind of a continual investment every so often in replacing trucks and trailers. We like to keep our trucks pretty new, so we replace them every four to five years. Over the past three or four years, our fleet size has grown from about fifty trucks to now seventy-five, and our trailer bank has increased from about eighty-five to now 135,” says Keith. The company owns about ninety percent of its trucks, with the remainder being leased vehicles.

Seafood’s trucks are fitted with advanced two-way dash-cams, GPS systems, and sensors. Trailer monitoring software allows staff to keep a close watch on trailer fuel and temperature levels, mileage, idle time, and location. Maintenance staff “usually know there’s a problem with a reefer unit before the driver does,” and can alert the trucker to mechanical issues, he says.

The company’s head office has also become a technological hub. In recent years, it has “invested a lot into new operating software that does everything from daily operations, dispatching, our accounting. It keeps our customer lists up to date, tracks staff profiles. There are different modules assigned to it. There’s a safety compliance module, there’s a repair module and a maintenance module. We schedule all our trucks and keep track of all our inventory through it,” says Keith.

The company has come a long way, given its humble roots. Seafood Express Transport was founded in the late 1970s, and Keith’s father Bill then acquired it in 1986.

“When my father bought it, the company only had six or seven trucks and was almost exclusively hauling fish. He ran it until January 1, 2021, when I took complete ownership of the company,” says Keith, who worked at Seafood during summers and on a part-time basis when he was younger. His father remains active in a consultative role, even in retirement, he says.

He wants to keep the company within the family. At the moment, a brother-in-law and a sister-in-law also work with him.

Before COVID-19, Seafood Express Transport was looking into potentially hauling more dry freight. Dry vans were secured, and business was lined up, but COVID-19 restrictions put this venture temporarily on hold. It was also thinking about expanding its brokerage operations.

Although expansion efforts have been halted, the company was well-prepared when the pandemic hit last March, says Keith. Thanks to its investment in technology, office staff who wanted to stay at home could work remotely with minimal difficulty.

Maintenance staff and drivers cannot work from home, however. Drivers were issued with hand sanitizer, face-masks, rubber gloves, and other PPE safety equipment to keep them infection-free on the road. Maintenance crews were given personal protective equipment to wear when cleaning and working on vehicles. The company also redesigned its office, moving desks to maintain a safe distance apart and putting Plexiglas barriers in place.

COVID-19 spurred further technological change. Paperwork was switched to digital formats, which ended up streamlining administration.

As it delivers food, Seafood Express Transport was deemed an essential service and did not have to shut down during the pandemic. Still, COVID-19 caused a spike in expenses. A few of the company’s customers ran into cash flow problems, equipment parts became difficult to acquire due to long delays, and drivers faced long delays while waiting for paperwork to clear, etc.

Traditionally, Seafood Express Transport staff made a point of visiting customers in person to touch base and discuss business. Such meetings are now done over the phone or online.

Keith says he used to encourage staff to attend conferences and trade shows to “gain more knowledge in a specific niche – whether human resources, maintenance, etc.” Most of these events have been shut down or have gone digital for the time being.

He has big plans once the pandemic lifts. “We want to extend our freight network. We don’t really haul too much of anything west of Ontario in Canada. We don’t do a lot in the western United States.”

He is proud that the firm pulled together during the worst of COVID-19 and that the company did not have to lay off any of its staff. The company’s loyalty to its workforce has been recognized with an Employer of Choice award from the Trucking Human Resource Sector Council Atlantic last year, and it has earned this honour for the past four years, says Keith. In 2018, Seafood Express Transport also took home an Excellence in Business Award from the Greater Charlottetown Area Chamber of Commerce.

Including drivers, Seafood Express Transport has roughly 120 employees. Keith sees the size of his company as an advantage. Being small and flexible, it is easier to pivot in the face of new challenges or opportunities compared to larger carriers, he explains.

And certainly, there is no lack of challenges to overcome, including the continent-wide driver shortage. The industry is in the middle of a demographic crunch, with an ageing workforce and not enough young people replacing retiring drivers and certified technicians.

“We’ve invested a lot of money in recruiting over the last five years. We didn’t have a full-time recruiter before. Now we do,” he states.

As a proud board member of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association and the PEI Trucking Sector Council, Keith and his colleagues are working hard to ameliorate the driver shortage. Industry associations have teamed with educators and have launched initiatives to raise awareness of trucking sector opportunities. Trucking groups are also trying to entice young people by highlighting how computerized the sector has become.

Another challenge comes in the form of environmental regulations. Seafood Express Transport must constantly update its fleet to ensure that company vehicles meet increasingly strict emission control standards.

Seafood Express Transport has become something of an industry pioneer when it comes to promoting wellness in the trucking sector. The company recently launched a podcast, available for anyone to view, featuring interviews with truckers, driving tips, and discussions about mental and physical health. Called The Express Lane Podcast, this new media venture has been well-received, says Keith.

“We interview a driver and ask how they get along with challenges they face on the road. We’ll interview registered dieticians for tips to drivers to stay healthy on the road.”

The podcast is a natural outgrowth of the company’s efforts at maintaining a healthy workforce. It also provides free fruit for employees, has a fitness center at its terminal that staff can access at any time, and holds after-hours seminars by qualified speakers about health topics. Seafood Express Transport has a multicultural workforce and hosts regular diversity training events too.

“A lot of people think trucking is this rough and tough macho kind of environment. That’s not the culture we’re breeding here internally. It’s something that carriers and vendors need to pay closer attention to – the well-being of their staff – if they want their staff to be productive and efficient,” states Keith.

The post Family Firm Sets New Standards in the Trucking Sector<p class="company">Seafood Express Transport</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Is PECO Pallet America’s brightest pallet pooler today? With its lively red pallets to be seen here, there, and everywhere throughout North America’s warehouses, clients are left with no second-guessing about who their supplier is, whether in Mexico, Canada or the U.S.A.

Red has always stood for passion, speed, and dominance – three perfect descriptors for this dynamic company. With its American base in Irvington, New York, and the Canadian outfit headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, the company’s closed-loop pallet operation comprises well over 2000 recovery points, more than 40 depots, and a similar number of sorting zones across North America.

And its quality is as easily recognizable as its signature color. Every pallet is made according to the strictest specifications with 26 slats and just short of 140 fasteners guaranteed per full-sized unit.

To date, PECO Pallet has been lauded for affordable prices, sterling service, and as a forward thinker given to setting trends. This translates to a reputation for coming to market with novel value propositions. Like being the driving force behind the rising popularity of box pallets that is slowly causing a drop in the use of stringer pallets throughout Canada – making it a pioneer of using block pallets exclusively in closed-loop pallet pooling.

The popularity of block pallets seems easily justifiable when moving them around as they are built to be more easily movable by forklifts or when transported on trailers. Furthermore, PECO’s superior quality is achieved by using only responsibly harvested wood dried in kilns, which mitigates issues like fungus, insect infestations, etc. Treating the wood in this manner enhances its durability.

Before the block pallets are dispatched back into the rental circuit, every unit passes through a rigorous 15-point inspection executed by specialized technology that includes the lasers, cameras, and 3D scanners that make up the company’s Vision-X system.

This happens on every single return trip through the depot. It may sound like a very intense process to the uninitiated, but those in the industry fully understand the time and wastage that occurs when poolers deliver substandard pallets.

PECO Pallet has literally millions of its instantly recognizable block pallets in circulation throughout North America, but it nevertheless handles all movement of its own pallets, including those returning from their final destination to its depot where they submit to the rigorous testing and cleaning process.

Considering the scale on which the company operates, this is a gargantuan task, even for as highly tuned and efficient a company as PECO.

For the sake of precision, it is therefore imperative that clients’ needs are thoroughly ascertained and followed up with relevant feedback and problem-solving discussions. With logistics running hot through this company’s veins, it is a field that the PECO Pallet team excels at. Flexibility and responsive customer care form a fundamental part of its ethos.

Rigging its entire operation for optimum accuracy at all times is one of the company’s mainstays to ensure that no time at all is wasted in getting pallets organized and on the road for clients in high-pressure industries. To ease the process, PECO side-stepped the common call-center business model in favor of assigning each client their own specific consultants responsible for dealing with all their orders and shipments.

The company first started doing business in 1997 as the Pallet Exchange Company, which name soon yielded to the acronym of PECO that’s in use today. The company was the brainchild and combining of forces of nearly 20 pallet recyclers, fabricators, and brokers, each, at that time, running their own operation.

They were all seasoned in the trade and had a common vision – that they could make a genuine, competitive impact by synchronizing and improving the control and distribution of pallets. PECO Pallet developed and introduced its pooling model in Canada in 2013.

With supply chain management being under severe pressure during 2020’s lockdown measures, the superior service and technology that the company offers has brought tremendous returns in terms of client satisfaction. Not surprising, as the benefits of choosing PECO pallets include reduced conveyor and palletizer pile-ups, safer racking zones, less packaging, improved product safety, cheaper storage, and less time spent in circulation by the pallets.

In terms of the significant savings reported in an independent study led by Canada’s Poirier Group (TPG), distributors can avoid wasting nearly US$500,000 annually by opting for block pallets over stringer pallets. As PECO Pallet notes in a press release, this impressive amount comprises over US$440,000 in transport charges, as well as nearly US$57,000 in improved operational effort.

Also, based on a report by Freedonia (the expectation of a nearly two percent increase in pallet distribution by the end of 2019), the numbers were projected to show over 2.5 million new pallets entering the market in Canada alone.

The logistics news provider, inboundlogistics.com, in 2017 identified two reasons for the sharp increase projected by analyst Kyle Peters of Freedonia. An increase in consumer goods shipped from manufacturers, plus the upgrade of old pallets that had not been phased out due to the recession of 2017/2018, were given as the main contributors to the projection.

While a marked move toward using restored over brand-new pallets is also noted, business projections are looking particularly favorable for PECO Pallet with its sterling offering.

In December 2020, DC Velocity reported a tremendous rise in the demand for better quality rental block-pallets. PECO Pallet was ready to answer the call and it filled the gap in the market with its great quality, easy-stack pallets.

With such superb timing, we will no doubt soon see good news about its successful handling of the COVID-19 crisis.

The post Red-Hot and Ready to Roll<p class="company">PECO Pallet</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

California-based United Service Technologies (UST) has been a pioneer in machine servicing for over twenty-five years. In bringing together service and technology, the company intends to live up to its name and help foster the next generation of American technicians.

Like many businesses, this one started as a way to solve a single problem. Owner and Vice President Rodger Smelcer formed the company with partner Robert Heidkamp in 1995 to eradicate the multiple operations and service fees that manufacturers imposed on grocery machine repair. “Our idea was to eliminate one of these fees and service both with one technician, independent of the manufacturer.” This way, the two men thought, their businesses could aid grocery chains in saving money and decreasing machine downtime.

The fledgling company had modest beginnings, initially servicing commercial food equipment in 21 supermarkets across Southern California. “After testing our idea, we showed we could save them over 24 percent overall,” Smelcer remarks. News of its success spread rapidly, and the company more than quadrupled in size in its first two years, performing over $1.5 million worth of service in its second year alone. Since then, UST has developed fixed-price and tiered service models, and Smelcer says that this is unique among grocery machine repair businesses. “It’s a big differentiator between us and our competition.”

Faced with the limits of mid-nineties computers, United Service Technologies adapted quickly, a trait that became its trademark. “We built our own internal field service management software that we managed all of our calls with,” Smelcer says, and this enabled the company to track repair results in real time. Over the past five years, it has been employing advanced field service management software using artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality, and mixed reality. “We’re uniting service and technology to give our customers the best of what we can do with service with technology attached to it,” he adds.

Today, UST services grocery stores close to its headquarters in Southern California, the grocery store density capital of the world; however, its reach also extends throughout the Southwest to Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and North with new inroads in Idaho. In total, it enjoys $19 million in revenue annually.

The company prides itself on its single-mindedness, servicing grocery food preparation equipment with no involvement in refrigeration or heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC). It has carved out its place and intends to remain there. “We’ve really narrowed into what we do well, which is hot-side food equipment service in the grocery industry,” he says. “You’d be hard-pressed to find another company in the country that has that same focus.”

A key reason for this niche is the stability of the grocery sector itself. Smelcer relates that, early on, he and his partners calculated that the United States experiences an annual population growth of roughly four percent. With this guaranteed annual expansion in its customer base, UST could predict steady revenue increases. “We had four percent growth built in,” he says, elaborating that while businesses and technologies may rise and fall, “you have to eat.”

As part of its mandate, United Service Technologies continues to implement the newest technology and push the bounds of existing technologies to fit them to its business model. The Help Lightning app, designed for iPads but also compatible with Android devices, allows technicians on the job to use practical augmented reality to present a clear picture to any other company employee. This cutting-edge virtual presence means that its more experienced technicians can take a backseat digital support role, using their experience as needed to guide newer technicians in the field.

Using mixed reality, digital support technicians can superimpose their own hands into live video, demonstrating exactly what to do and how to do it. “Both the trainee and the trainer could hold up a bolt in real-time and compare them,” Smelcer says.

In addition to this existing tool, UST is using no-code application software to create custom service apps for its technicians. Without requiring coding experience, the company’s service professionals can apply their experience and build programs best suited for changing service environments. It also uses AI technology to further augment its service technicians. When calls come in and technicians answer customers’ questions about the nature of the issue, the AI indicates parts that could fix the problem and calculates the probability of success. Eventually, the AI will reach a consensus and find a part guaranteed to fix the problem. “We can send the right technician, with the right part, to get the job done,” Smelcer states, achieving what he calls a “first-time fix.”

He is particularly proud of this utilization of experienced technicians in digital support roles, so older workers do not ‘age out’ of the workforce and trains the next generation of American technicians. The company’s average technician is 27, far lower than typical for the industry, a reflection of its approach. “We’re utilizing all this technology, and they’re attracted to that,” he says of younger applicants.

Through enhancing technicians’ resumes with experience in the latest skills, he believes that the company can build a new generation of skilled labor. He dismisses the possibility of employees gaining skills and then departing for greener pastures, placing his faith in the promise of constant development to ensure low turnover. Older employees’ role as digital support ensures they pass on their skills.

United Service Technologies uses the recording app Marco Polo for its technicians to record and post video content as part of this appeal to younger workers. “Our technicians in the field actually create content of the machines they’re working on every day, and then we take that content and turn it into training, through our learning management system,” Smelcer says. He believes that this encourages the company’s younger demographic – over 70 percent of staff are millennials.

Smelcer foresees a large potential influx of new applicants from the automobile and personal vehicle sector as it increasingly switches from the combustion engine to electric-powered vehicles. The service industry will be forced to adapt, and those mechanics, while not having the skills to service electric vehicles, will be perfect additions to UST’s business model. “We take all those displaced people and fill the gap,” he says. “All of those trained mechanics have to go somewhere.”

Industry, in general, is automating, and United Service Technologies is beginning to see itself as a “healthcare provider for robots,” he says. “We have programs in place in our business that line up with healthcare-type names.” Total Care, for example, offers parts and care for a fixed price – Smelcer jokes that it is similar to a health maintenance organization. “We provide parts, labor, and travel for everything you need.” This custom model of service is distinctive in the industry and promises to expand as technology progresses.

Its Personal Care model is largely the same as its more comprehensive cousin but adjusts bi-yearly based on usage. “You can, as a company, do things to affect your total cost, and the way we achieve that is by tracking avoidable costs,” Smelcer explains. “By tracking those, and making the customer aware of some of the solutions to solving those things we’re tracking, they can affect their total costs.”

UST’s forward-thinking approach, as well as its chosen sector, has supported it in not merely surviving but growing in 2020. Given the wide service area, Smelcer says that company leadership knew it was only a matter of time before the virus affected it and so put pre-emptive measures in place. “We weren’t running around crying wolf, but we were saying ‘the sky might be falling’ before the sky was actually falling,” he says. These measures and constant communication with customers have kept employees safe and on the job.

Thanks to United Service Technologies’ resiliency and the growth in the grocery store sector sparked by the pandemic – over 30 percent in 2020, according to Smelcer – the company is expanding smoothly, and its embrace of technology means that new hires can be trained much more quickly. The union of artificial intelligence and augmented reality, he declares, is a powerful one. “Through those two things, we can ramp up a new technician from zero productivity in less than three months, with no prior experience in the industry at all.”

As United Service Technologies celebrates its twenty-sixth year, the company has certainly found its strength and is working to move forward. By bringing together experienced staff and innovative technology, it is working to forge the next generation of American technicians and service personnel. American industry is automating at an accelerating rate, and these may very well be the skilled workers needed for the jobs of tomorrow.

The post Bringing Advanced Technology to the Grocery Sector<p class="company">United Service Technologies</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

“A lot has been going on at our company,” says Brunnquell, including the recent acquisition of Peckish, a company that produces premium hard-cooked eggs found in the grab-and-go aisle of groceries and convenience stores. Described as a “reimagining” of the hard-cooked egg, Peckish adapted the way eggs are cooked so the yolk is creamier, and offers two eggs in a packet with a set of five different flavors or spices for dipping.

“That’s the innovation part of Egg Innovations,” says Brunnquell of the product set to unroll across the nation in upcoming months. “We want to be anything but a commodity, and Peckish is more of an idea place.”

Although there are other free-range companies in the business, Egg Innovations is the “grandfather,” with about 30 years of experience, although still not a household name. Brunnquell says it’s time to tell their story a little bit better, including the reason behind the company’s core premise.

“In the free-range space, we’re advocates that every animal on this Earth is hardwired to certain behaviors,” he says. “In the case of the chicken, it’s hardwired to perch, to scratch, to socialize. When you let it do these things, good things happen.”

Brunnquell allows those good things to happen with his 65 layer barns housing 20,000 birds each in Indiana, Kentucky and Wisconsin, where the birds have access to the outdoors every day. The unique barns feature dedicated perch areas, scratch areas and pasture areas where the animals are free to be themselves and thrive in the process.

“What it really shows is when you treat the animals well and you really are all in on welfare, you unlock their genetic potential,” he says. “These animals aren’t stressed or pushed to these levels. They were just showing us when you treat them right, this is what they can do.”

Egg Innovations truly enjoys its leadership role in this space, including being at the front end of launching a regenerative egg via regenerative agriculture, a practice that looks to fight climate change and improve the planet’s ecosystem.

“We were always passionate about healthy pastures for our hens to get outside and enjoy sunshine and shade, and crawl and explore underneath things and on top of things and perch,” explains Brunnquell. “When we really began looking at regenerative agriculture, it occurred to us we have over 1,200 acres of pasture under our management to work with.”

The company is now adapting its pastures to regenerative environments with carbon sequestration to promote healthy, improved soil that can, in a small way, be part of a solution to the climate change issue.

This past year, the onset of the pandemic added its own unique challenges to the already challenging nature of farming. All companies in some manner changed their practices for COVID-19, says Brunnquell, whether it was limiting the number of workers, using masks, or practicing social distancing. Egg Innovations, determined to maintain close relationships, has managed to safely maintain connections with the farmer community that produces its eggs. Although the pandemic has raised safety concerns for the farmers and those relationships, Brunnquell has ensured his farmers were healthy, their eggs had homes, that they continued to receive checks, and they could help meet demand for the market in spring when there was hoarding.

“I would say the thing we’re proudest of this year is just innumerable stories of individual interactions between our employees and staff and the family farmers that we work with,” he says. “The more this crazy world gets automated, the more we’re in the people business. There’s just nothing that replaces a handshake, or in today’s world, a Zoom call. There’s always a real person at the other end, and it’s easy to lose sight of that. This past year was a very trying time on relationships.”

In that way, one of Egg Innovations’ biggest successes was staying focused on finding commonalities and reinforcing relationships for the long term. Video technology is useful and necessary right now, but Brunnquell says it was also easy to get out and talk with farmers and have a physical presence while maintaining a safe social distance. Although video has indeed allowed the company to increase points of contact — you can talk to someone in Philadelphia at 10am, and then someone on the west coast at 11 — nothing replaces face-to-face. “The human side is where the real story is,” he says.

Going into 2021, a significant portfolio expansion includes moving into a full line of institutional products with frozen eggs, liquid eggs, and powdered eggs. “We really want to give people who are passionate about animal welfare an opportunity,” says Brunnquell. “The more choices on how to exercise that decision, the better. We’re very proud of the corner that we’re taking over.”

There is always resistance to change in an industry, however, and the biggest one involves money. Brunnquell says he understands that the largest players in the United States are going to be slow to move to what Egg Innovations does, reluctant to undertake a massive investment in cages, then moving to cage-free, and possibly all the way to free range and pasture.

“We also recognize that in this environment we have 10 percent unemployment, we have people who need to buy 89 cent eggs,” he says. “However, we also recognize that more and more consumers are a lot more demanding and have expectations about issues beyond just food.”

Brunnquell’s experience growing up involved finding the cheapest food for a family’s tight budget. Today, people are much more aware of what’s happening on the planet and how animals are being taken care of, which greatly influences personal and family food purchasing habits.

“This generation is smart enough to know that you can take care of animals and still produce them in an economic manner. Hopefully we’re part of an example of how to do that, how to pay a living wage to our farmers, how to do it efficiently by vertical integration and still get it out to the consumer at an affordable price.”

Within the industry, Brunnquell sees owners older than himself who are in the stages of turning over the business to children in their forties. While the patriarch might claim cage-free is a “little bit silly,” and perhaps doesn’t understand why people would pay for it, sons and daughters who are stepping into those leadership roles say they’re looking forward to the day when they get to make those decisions – and they will be making changes.

“Cage-free is going to take the dominant part of the conversation, but it’s about the rising tide raising all boats,” says Brunnquell. “There’s going to be a set of consumers who say going cage-free is nice for those birds, but they’re still confined and they’re still not going outside. I want something better. So, free range and pasture are expanding as well.”

Free range and pasture offer numerous benefits for the birds, including no severe feather-pecking, low mortality rates, and birds outperforming caged flocks by two percent on average.

Brunnquell understands consumers have different expectations than they did 20 years ago, and are willing to pay a reasonable amount more as long as it’s legitimate. The problem, he says, centers around a vast misunderstanding of the different terminology used.

“We need to continue to educate consumers. In our research, 83 percent of consumers who hear cage-free think free range. They hear cage-free, but they think those birds go outside. As that education process continues, we want to be there again with the diversity of products that we can [use to] bring the cost down and bring the variety up so that it’s a lot easier for people to integrate animal welfare into their normal purchasing habits.”

This year, Brunnquell is also looking forward to the company’s rebranding, as it traditionally flew under the radar with about 85 percent of its sales under private labels. “While we had a brand, we weren’t putting a focus on it and really telling our story.” In November of last year, the company initiated a relaunch of the Blue Sky Brand and is beginning to tell that story again of animal welfare and what farmers can do with the hens and the eggs.

“We’re very uniquely positioned as the only company in the nation that has the business chops but also the scientific and academic background,” Brunnquell says. “We really do understand why a hen doesn’t go out in the middle of the day, but goes out late in the afternoon, and why they exercise a variety of behaviors. We want to share that story with consumers that there’s a brand out there that’s going to take away a lot of the noise and try to really make it clean.”

The post Good Eggs: Treating Chickens With Kindness<p class="company">Egg Innovations</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Jensen Meat experienced a steady growth rate over the years, but that has recently started to pick up speed. Of its five hundred employees, in fact, over one hundred have joined in the last two years.

At the outset of the pandemic, there was a fear of the unknown in regards to working conditions, and the company immediately took action and increased its safety measures significantly to protect its team and alleviate concerns about working in a plant. “Some employees were scared and did not want to be at work if they felt unsafe, so one of the big things we wanted to do is make our employees feel safe. We wanted them to know that we’re doing everything in our power to protect them,” said Vice President of Executive Accounts Patricia Lavigne. Jensen Meat added two nurses to the payroll; all employees were tested for COVID-19, and daily temperature checks were performed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the business landscape across every industry. Supply chains have been disrupted, regulations are changing, and the advice on best practices continues to shift as new data becomes available. In this new world, many businesses are struggling to survive, and only the strongest and most adaptable have been able to make the necessary changes to address these issues.

Jensen Meat Company has seen a thirty percent increase in retail demand and a significant decrease in foodservice sales. Another change in the market is that obtaining various materials has become difficult as the food industry works out the kinks brought on by new rules and lockdowns all over the country.

The regulatory changes happening within the food market have proven to be no challenge for the company as food safety has always been a priority. “We like to stay ahead of the new regulations, and go over and beyond the USDA on standards. That’s one thing where Jensen will consistently make sure we’re trying to be ahead of the game,” said Lavigne.

The company has exciting news for the industry of plant-based alternatives. It is currently breaking ground on its new plant-based division, and the doors will open in April of this year. The plant will have an initial capacity of over fifteen million pounds, and there are plans to make this facility accessible to other emerging plant-based food companies. Using a collaborative effort, Jensen Meat aims to help improve the production skills of other companies in this field and the plant-based industry as a whole.

“We have learned from working with plant-based that many companies have funding to develop products and the market, but when it comes to production, they are limited in funds to open a production facility. This is where our Jensen plant-based division comes into play. Giving support and capacity for these companies to fulfill their production needs,” explained Lavigne.

Jensen Meat also offers products that contain a smaller amount of meat combined with more plant-based alternatives. It recently released its Angus beef and mushroom patties to give people the opportunity to reduce their meat consumption without going completely vegetarian or vegan. The blended patties are sixty percent Angus beef and forty percent mushroom, giving them improved sustainability and cost without sacrificing taste people know.

“They’re the best of both worlds for flexitarians who want to get more veggies in their diet, but want to enjoy their favorite hamburger. They give you the savory, rich, mushroom Umami taste, are low in sodium, have less saturated fat, increased fiber, and allow people to eat healthier without requiring a lifestyle change,” said Lavigne.

The company is known for its commitment to sustainability, transparency, and innovation in the market. “Recycling is an obvious part of Jensen’s sustainability initiatives, but there are others that affect the company, such as employee engagement, supply chain practices, operational efficiency, resource consumption and waste, philanthropy, packaging, and facility design,” said Lavigne.

Recently, Jensen Meat added carports with solar paneling in its parking lot, and these are harvesting over fifty percent of the company’s electricity needs. Another one of its progressive actions is to add eight electric car charging stations to encourage employees to purchase electric vehicles.

In 2013, when the company moved to its new, state-of-the-art, 150,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in southern San Diego, it considered environmental consciousness every step of the way. This included all sourcing, design, and production decisions. For example, it selected low volatile organic compound paint for office walls to reduce indoor pollution, and it chose FLOR tiles to achieve a carbon footprint lower than that of importing products from overseas. FLOR tiles are made of recycled fibers and ninety-five percent of the product is manufactured in the U.S. The company’s vow of sustainability extends well beyond production and into every facet of its culture.

“Sustainability is essential in our industry, and it’s good business practice. We are proud to be leaders in our field, reducing costs while ensuring our customers get top-quality, beef products. We try to be strategic about how we do this, so that our company can do its part within the larger picture of our children’s future and the planet they’re going to inherit,” explained Lavigne.

Safety, sustainability, and innovation are the core principles derived from the leadership of the company’s Chief Executive Officer Abel Olivera. Olivera believes in a culture of personal accountability and encourages all of the company’s employees to be leaders themselves, giving them incentives to go above and beyond in all aspects of their work to create the most satisfactory customer experience. By making leaders out of his people, he has built a motivated workforce and this has led to the company’s success and ongoing expansion. Each department can operate freely and make informed decisions independently.

As the industry becomes more transparent with its processes, customers grow more curious about the specifics of production. Every day, despite the adage, people are becoming more and more interested in knowing exactly how the sausage is made.

“Consumers continue to care more and more about the provenance of their food and what happens to it at the processing plant, and we’re committed to transparency and ethics in this area,” said Lavigne.

Operating from one of the most modern plants west of the Mississippi, Jensen Meat will continue to be a leader in the field of meat production and is excited to delve into the new world of plant-based alternatives. The long-term goal is to expand into other countries and eventually help to solve the worldwide hunger and malnutrition problems with a healthier and more economical protein, whether meat-based or plant-based.

The post This Leader in the Field of Meat Production is Expanding into Plant-Based Alternatives<p class="company">Jensen Meat Company</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Opening this spring, the Allen Parish Cultural Center features four main exhibits that showcase the region’s rich heritage. Visitors enter the Center’s military exhibit, which features The Wall of Honor to remember local veterans’ service to their country. Local artist and Vietnam Veteran Gary Nupp drew 8”x 10” portraits from the service photos of veterans to create the wall. The room also displays uniforms from different military branches, including a Tuskegee Airman uniform. One of the more unusual collections is a set of vintage bedpans donated by a military nurse whose patients used them during World War II. “I haven’t found anybody that has this particular exhibit,” says Haddock. “I think we have the only World War II bedpan exhibit in the state.” Visitors will also see a knife and crossbow made by the Montagnard people of Vietnam, an indigenous minority who fought alongside American forces in the Vietnam War and an exhibit from the Afghanistan War.

The Tee Swamp, where visitors are treated to a realistic walk-through experience of a Louisiana swamp, is next. They step through a screen door onto the porch of an old, tin roof cabin overlooking a room of green lights resembling water and blue lights giving an evening time experience, with swampy, pine and flowery smells. Two life-size photographs taken of an Allen Parish swamp and field make up the mural that covers the walls, and the floor creates a realistic experience of outside in the swamp… but inside.

Many taxidermy animals bring this swamp to life, such as a beaver building his dam, a seven-foot alligator stalking a nutria rat, and a Bard owl quietly watching the activity, while quail, pheasants, and bobcats prowl the nighttime scene. The atmosphere is dim and quiet, invoking a mysterious evening in an isolated wilderness filled with history and legend. “We want it to be kind of spooky,” Haddock says.

A motion activator triggers a voice that says, “It’s been a long time since a body passed this way,” and a Cajun ghost shoots onto the wall. “He tells the story of what it was like for the Cajuns [when they] got kicked out of Nova Scotia and had to come to live in the swamp,” Haddock says. The ghost continues with an overview of Cajun culture including the traditional cuisine.

Traditional Cajun food features unique ingredients native to the Louisiana swamps. Tourists looking to get the full experience can try cooking these dishes, and the Cultural Center provides postcards with recipes such as turtle sauce piquant (snapping turtle stew), squirrel head and nutria (water rat) gumbo, deep fried frog legs, and beaver tail soup.

The ghost talks about the Rougarou being out tonight and the great light that gets you lost in the swamp. He goes on to describe how important music is to Cajun history and culture and then points visitors toward the next Cultural Center exhibit, the Legend’s Music Museum. This exhibit features a vintage jukebox showcasing musicians from Louisiana, concentrating on playing zydeco (dance music with roots in French, African American, and Afro-Caribbean traditions, often featuring the accordion and washboard), swamp pop (developed in the 1950s from a combination of French Louisiana musical traditions, country, rock ‘n’ roll, and R&B), and Cajun music (folk music featuring the button accordion, the fiddle and the French language, with historical roots in Acadian ballads) and highlights the music greats of Allen Parish. The Tourist Commission left plenty of space in the room for dancing while visitors play the jukebox’s vinyl records. “We encourage it,” Haddock says.

The music exhibit also includes life-size cut-outs of local musicians. Delmar Sonnier, Willis Prudhomme, and Bernie Alan form a band on a stage with a fiddle, harmonica, and accordion respectively. An accordion and a scrub board with spoons sits in front of the stage, ready for visitors to play or to include in a photo op with the musicians. A cut-out of Katy Webster lounges across a piano for another photo op. This gifted piano player made “every key on it sing” and rose to fame while touring with Otis Redding. You can find these local musicians, and more, listed in the vintage jukebox.

Next, visitors enter the Coushatta Heritage Exhibit. This room is dedicated to the history and culture of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana. A case displays the beautiful, coiled pine needle baskets for which the Coushatta Tribe is known. A (taxidermy) garfish – an animal closely associated with the Coushatta Tribe – rests in the bottom of the case. The gar fish was used for food and jewelry making.

Another Cultural Center exhibit is still under construction. The Tourist Commission is in the process of turning a two and a half acre field into a propagation garden for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds that visitors can explore via a walkway.

After touring the Center, visitors can peruse an electronic kiosk listing local hotels, flea markets, restaurants and more to help plan their next destination. A map can be created from your picks on the kiosk and sent to your phone with the push of a button.

The Myths and Legends Byway is another destination tourists are sure to enjoy. The 181-mile road meanders through the pine forests, farms and back roads of Allen, Beauregard, and Vernon Parishes for a lovely scenic adventure. Kiosks along the byway showcase local points of interest and colorful local legends. Stopping points include a range of attractions, from a National Forest and historic cemetery to gift shops, Mom and Pop restaurants, and museums. “You can pick and choose where you want to stop,” Haddock says. One of her favorite destinations is Strother’s Country Store, which sells traditional country cooking. “They have some of the best country cooking you’ve ever had.”

Allen Parish’s Leatherwood Museum is another must-see stop along the Myths and Legends Byway. Dating back to 1888, the structure had been used for a variety of purposes before becoming a museum, including as a railroad company house, boarding house, hospital, and private home. A bedroom is furnished with the original tiger oak furniture, and the dining room table is set with blue carnival dishware. Exhibits include early dental and medical equipment, photographs of the Great Louisiana War Maneuvers (a series of mock battles to prepare the American military for World War II), a military uniform collection, one of the largest arrowhead and point collections in the region, and a Native Wildlife room filled with taxidermy animals in their natural habitats. Visitors amble across a bridge through the recreated forest to see bears, deer, a coyote, a bobcat, raccoons, skunks, snakes, and more.

Not all visitors drive through the Myth and Legends Byway via car or truck. Through the year, Allen Parish hosts a steady stream of cyclists on bicycles, who tour the Southern Tier Bike Route, stretching from San Francisco, California all the way to St. Augustine, Florida. The Allen Parish Tourist Commission Administrative Office is a stop on the tour, which gives the team a chance to guide cyclists to Cajun cuisine. “It’s an avenue to promote [what] we call the roadie food, the convenience store food,” Haddock explains. The team sends cyclists to Landreneau’s Grocery & Meats, which has a smoked meat market with Boudin (sausage made with ground pork, rice, onion, green peppers, and Cajun spices), cracklings (fried pork or poultry fat trimmings), ponce (pig stomach stuffed with pork, spices, and rice), smoked rabbit, venison sausage and chicken sausage. “Whatever you want would be over there,” Haddock says. These authentic Cajun dishes can’t be found in many towns or cities and cyclists often return to Allen Parish to sample the traditional fare again. “A lot of times they come back, but they’re coming in a car and they’re bringing people with them.”

The Allen Parish Tourist Commission wants to continue to promote the region’s traditional Cajun foods. The team is in the process of creating a brochure called “Convenience Store du Jour” to guide visitors to authentic Cajun cuisine found almost nowhere else in America.

In addition to unique culinary opportunities, Allen Parish has a wealth of outdoor destinations and activities, particularly relevant as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to keep people outside to prevent the spread of the virus. The Ouiska Chitto Creek provides an ideal outdoor opportunity. Also known as the Whiskey Chitto, this 70-mile, gently flowing waterway winds past beautiful countryside, the Kisatchie National Forest, sandy beaches, several historical sites, and white quartz sandbars. Visitors enjoy fishing, kayaking, and swimming the creek’s waters, as well as picnicking and camping alongside it. They are likely to catch a glimpse of turkeys, deer, and raccoons, as well as other wildlife, while enjoying their outdoor activities.

From a brand new museum to authentic Cajun cooking, fascinating local history, scenic byways, and natural beauty, Allen Parish boasts a variety of draws, including outdoor activities that can be enjoyed while following COVID safety guidelines. Foodies, history buffs, nature lovers, hunters, fishers, and more will find plenty to do – and eat – as they spend a day in Cajun Country, in Allen Parish.

The post Spend a Day in Cajun Country<p class="company">Allen Parish, LA</p> appeared first on Business In Focus Magazine.

Currently, only two percent of domestic freight in the United States is shipped through marine channels, despite these offering a safer and more efficient and cost-effective way to move commodities compared to highway and rail transportation infrastructure.

In Europe, 44 percent of goods are seaborne, while in China it is a whopping 61 percent. This means there is still significant market potential to bring greater prosperity and economic sustainability to the City of Green Bay and Northeastern Wisconsin via the Port of Green Bay.

As the western-most port in Lake Michigan, the Port of Green Bay offers the shortest and most direct route to markets around the world, including the Great Lakes region, which itself is the third largest economy globally.

Port with potential
The Port is home to fourteen businesses, eight of which are capable of handling dry bulk commodities like coal, cement, and limestone; four that handle bulk liquids like petroleum products, liquid asphalt, and other chemicals; and three that serve as general cargo docks for things like machinery, and agricultural and forest products, like wood pulp, which support the local paper and packaging industry.

Under the administration of the Brown County Harbor Commission, The Brown County Port and Resource Recovery Department is tasked with overseeing the port’s operations. Director Dean R. Haen and his team work tirelessly to ensure the port has the resources, infrastructure, leadership, and vision to succeed in bringing growth and prosperity to the region.

Luckily, COVID has had a minimal impact on the port’s operations, though port businesses are working safer and smarter to ensure that business continues as usual. While 2020 shipping volumes fell just short of the record-setting years prior, the Port has kicked 2021 off with a game-changing announcement.

The first domino
Brown County recently received a $500,000 grant from the State of Wisconsin through the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation (WEDC) that will, along with using its own financial resources, enable it to purchase the site of the decommissioned WPS Pulliam Power Plant, located at the mouth of the Fox River.

“It is the holy grail of port property in the Port of Green Bay and we were successful in being able to acquire that,” says Haen. “The first domino has fallen as we secured the property. The next step is to find and maximize the highest and best use of the property, and lease it to one or more entities to create jobs.”

He says the intention is also to develop the site into a modern port facility.

“Until now, the port really hasn’t owned any waterfront property, so we’ll have acres that we will be looking to lease to suitors to grow the port. Port growth will be a key component of that, so it needs to happen somewhere, in order to access state and federal grants to be able to develop that site” In particular, Haen says, they are eyeing harbor assistance grants .

The newly acquired site has highway and rail connectivity, making it a perfect fit for any port growth opportunity, including relocating an urban port operator, expanding existing port operators or finding new operators that could include fertilizer, steel, wind components, an intermodal facility or others. Viability studies are underway to identify ways to leverage this site to its fullest, taking advantage of the connectivity and proximity to markets, including the ability to complete overnight deliveries to customers within a 400-mile radius.

“Now it’s a full-press effort to keep those dominoes falling and get that site fully developed,” says Haen. “That site sustained high-paying jobs for a hundred years and now we’re looking to take that property and have it continue to produce high-paying jobs for the next hundred years.”

Friend of the environment
With regard to potential uses, a proposal has been put forward to relocate coal piles from C. Reiss Coal Company to the site. These have long been stored along the banks of the Fox River in downtown Green Bay, and are an eye sore and a nuisance from a development perspective, as the piles occupy prime waterfront property. They also emit coal dust into the downtown core. Discussions are underway.

While the Port of Green Bay is certainly an economic driver that plays a significant role in the area’s growth and development, it is also a proponent of environmental conservation. A perfect example of this is the collaborative efforts that took place to restore Cat Island.

The Cat Island Restoration Project was a multi-partner habitat restoration that resulted in the reconstruction of three islands that provide hundreds of acres of habitat for countless bird species, including many on migration and even endangered species like the piping plover.

The islands, which were constructed using beneficially reused dredge material removed from the outer harbor navigation channel, still have placement capacity for another thirty years’ worth of dredge material.

Regulation re-look
The Port of Green Bay often works with partners to identify new value streams for dredge material. Haen explains: “It’s a state-wide collaboration. Other ports are interested in benefits of dredge material and we’re actually working on finding legislators to draft legislation that changes the way Wisconsin regulators look at dredge material – what we’re calling a resource – to make it commercially available.”

For many years, efforts were made to clean up the Fox River and since 2017, it has met regulatory standards of cleanliness. Haen believes that the standards pertaining to dredge materials should reflect these changes.

“Right now, dredge material is regulated to a point where it is limited in its ability to be beneficially reusable. It is clean and should be unregulated or less regulated to increase the viability of its reintroduction. If it washed off the farm field and we picked it up, it is still topsoil like it was on the farm field and we should be able to sell it or give it away, whatever it may be, rather than stockpile it as waste,” he said.

Renard Island
Dredge material has always been a priority of the Port of Green Bay. Renard Island was established in 1977 through a memorandum of agreement between Brown County and the US Army Corps of Engineers to construct the confined disposal facility (CDF) on a legislated lake bed granted by the state.

In 2010, the process of closing the island began and an engineered soil cap was installed. Part of the closure entailed the construction of a causeway to the island. In 2015, the closure was successful and in 2017, ownership of the causeway and island was transferred to Brown County, which continues to identify ways to take advantage of the space for public benefit.

Haen acknowledges that while there was initial interest in investing in paved access and a parking lot to increase public use of the space, the low return on investment paired with the persistence of COVID has stalled efforts to convert Renard Island into a human-use passive and recreational facility. Hopefully, the project will resume when the economy returns to strength.

Port developments take time, and Haen, who has spent many years striving to bring these visions to fruition, understands that better than anyone. But he says that the land acquisition is a gamechanger, and while the announcement has been received with excitement, there is also some trepidation, knowing that, in reality, the work has only just begun.

Still, Haen hopes at some future time to, “look back and say I’m so glad to have been a part of it,” knowing the economic promise it holds for both the City of Green Bay and Northeastern Wisconsin, as well as the businesses and people who call the area home.

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