Baillie Lumber

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by: Jessica Lewis

Baillie Lumber has been operating in the Smyrna area for more than 30 years, and as one of the leading manufacturers and exporters of hardwoods, it looks like it will stay for years to come.

Headquarteed in Hamburg, Baillie Lumber has five production facilities in the eastern United States, including sites in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Waterloo, in addition to the Smyrna saw mill and production facility. The corporate website boasts a total of 475 employees at all of the facilities combined, and 107 of those are employed in Smyrna.

Brian Schwarting, assistant manager at Baillie’s in Smyrna, explained that while the market is changing, operations have remained generally the same.

The Smyrna facility currently employs 78 full-time employees and 29 temporary employees. It contracts with a temporary employment agency in South Carolina. “The temp service provides housing and transportation for the employees,” Schwarting explained. The assistant manager explained that in some instances the temporary employees choose to stay in the area and are hired on as full-time employees, but the majority of the temps stay at the facility for approximately a year before returning to their families.

Employees are divided among the sawmill, where the material is cut, and the concentration yard, where fresh lumber is re-graded and dried. “We ship about 3 million feet of lumber a month,” Schwarting explained.

Each production line processes approximately one and a half truck loads of green hardwood lumber an hour, which Schwarting explained turns into one truck load of dried lumber. The lumber brought into the Smyrna facility comes from within a 500-mile radius.

The assistant manager said he expects no big changes for the plant or the industry in the coming year. Despite the fact that the housing market has dropped, causing the hardwood market to drop, and lumber prices to decrease, Schwarting explained that Baillie Lumber has managed to hold its ground over the past year, even gaining a few percentage points in sales.

“Our main goal is just to continue to grow,” he said. “This year’s market trends are still flat, but if we can hold our own and still gain a few percentage points, we hope to do so. If the housing market picks up, then our industry picks up,” he explained.

While the dropping market has proved to be an obstacle over the last year, another issue for the company has been rising fuel costs. With 300 truck loads of lumber being shipped from the facility a month, and even more truck loads coming in, Schwarting said the rising fuel cost does have an effect on the company. Fuel surcharges are added to each truck load, and the costs do have an effect on the cost of the lumber. However, the company is taking efforts to minimize its costs as well. Instead of heating with fuel, the company uses its own wood waste to heat its facilities.

About 50 percent of the lumber produced by Baillie is sold domestically, while the other 50 percent is exported. Schwarting said the Asian market has become a large customer in the last few years. While most of the lumber is shipped to manufacturers, the company also works with local builders who buy their lumber directly from the facility. “We try to help people out with whatever they need,” Schwarting said.

While the lumber market has not changed dramatically over the years, Baillie has made some changes recently. “We sell most of our lumber out, but we are also buying tropical woods and marketing those,” Schwarting said. “It has been going well.” The company now handles over 80 different species of hard woods.

Schwarting said the company’s main goals are strictly to continue growing in terms of staffing and profitability.

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