Allison Dow, vice president, left, and Ray Ross, company director, stand in front of Maritime Lumber Limited’s office building in Woodstock, New Brunswick.
Maritime Lumber Thrives On Maritime Values
By Doug Knowles
Woodstock, New Brunswick — The employees of Maritime Lumber Limited, headquartered here, believe in what they like to call the “old Maritime values.” Vice President Allison Dow said that means simply, “we’re big enough to supply all of your needs, but we’re not too big to care.”
Allison Dow and Ray Ross are the next generation of Maritime Lumber — founded by Cyril Ross in 1975. The company is located at Woodstock, New Brunswick on the Trans Canada Highway, in a prime spot just 10 miles from Houlton, Maine. The location provides Maritime Lumber strategic access to the American market.
Ross explained, “The U.S. market has always been v
Maritime Lumber built a new warehouse, which measures 350-feet-long and 150-feet-wide, on its Woodstock property in 2000.
ery important to us. Eventually, we started exporting to other countries which broadened our base.”
Maritime has always specialized in temperate hardwoods — Hard Maple, Soft Maple, Yellow Birch and Red Oak. Eastern Canadian exporters have always shipped these species to England and western Europe.
Ross, with more than 50 years experience in the lumber industry, said his company’s success “is credited to great long-term relationships, both with mills and customers, based on trust and respect. We have always felt it was important to treat all the people that we do business with very fairly. There isn’t a place that we have ever bought or sold lumber that we can’t go back and do further business.”
Dow said, “Maritime Lumber recently began offering value added services such as surfacing, ripping and cut to size to help boost its competitive edge.” In the year 2000, Maritime built a 52,500-square-foot warehouse where orders are prepared under cover and loaded and tarped on trailers — guaranteed to arrive dry.
Maritime Lumber has been
A Nyle dehumidification kiln is located inside the production building so employees can load the lumber away from the elements. The weather does not affect a customer’s finished product.
a member of the National Hardwood Lumber Assoc. (NHLA) since their beginning in 1975. All of the company’s hardwood lumber inspectors have been graduates of the NHLA Inspection School, including present management Ray Ross and Allison Dow.
Maritime also maintains a warehouse at Edmundston, N.B., managed by Gilles Martel, who has bought and sold lumber for Maritime for 20 years. With Gilles being fluently bilingual, Maritime has been able to gain advantage in diverse markets.
Maritime has always been willing to adapt to change. They realize the industry is always changing — so new services must be provided — new markets must be developed, but Maritime values stay the same.
David Dionne inspects some Hard Maple in 4/4 width on the production line. In the production building, employees can manufacture logs in surfaced-2-sides, ripped to size or cut-to-length.
Maritime Lumber offers stock in 4/4 through 8/4 for quick shipment in all grades. The company can sort by color, width or length and load trucks right in the facility.
An aerial view shows the lumberyard at Woodstock, N.B., which is located just off the Trans Canada Highway. The Trans Canada Highway crisscrosses the entire country of Canada from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Maritime Lumber operates another lumberyard in Edmundston, N.B.
Key executives at Maritime Lumber include, from left, Cyril Ross, owner; Allison Dow, vice president; Valerie Forsythe, transportation; Lori Schriver, accountant; Rex Brown, sales; and Ray Ross, director.
