The global growth of Wood-Mizer is a truly American success story. It all started with an idea written on a piece of paper that became an innovative piece of equipment that helped change an industry.
This year, Wood-Mizer celebrates its 40th anniversary, and the company has grown into a global leader in sawmills and woodworking. With its global headquarters in the United States, Wood-Mizer has supported more than 100,000 sawmill owners with locations on six continents and more than 100 authorized distributors that have been established throughout the past 40 years.
How did it all begin? Wood-Mizer stated in a company history, “In 1982, two entrepreneurs, Don Laskowski and Dan Tekulve, designed and manufactured a new kind of sawmill that was a true innovation for the sawmilling industry. The first Wood-Mizer portable sawmill was engineered to be efficient, cost-effective, and simple to operate, so that anyone, anywhere could safely turn logs into lumber. Using thin-kerf sawmill blades, more boards were recovered from every log, less energy was used to operate, and fallen trees in the forest or city were able to be salvaged by individuals on-site.”
Going beyond its original focus, Wood-Mizer has continued to develop new technologies and products for the sawmilling and woodworking industries. Today, Wood-Mizer offers an extensive line of equipment, including portable and industrial sawmills, resaws, board edgers, wood kilns, planer/moulders, firewood processing equipment, pallet recycling equipment, material handling equipment, sawmill blades, and blade maintenance equipment.
Wood-Mizer is a globally recognized brand known for its durable equipment and ease of use. And for many customers, having a portable Wood-Mizer has become a way of life, tapping into the independent American spirit. John Smith, CEO of Wood-Mixer and a sawmill owner, stated, “We are the beneficiaries of 40 years of hard work that came before us. Wood-Mizer is much more than a sawmill, and we’ve seen that over the years as our customers have grown with us, it really is a lifestyle. I lived it myself when I pulled my LT28 out in the woods and cut a log. That feeling of accomplishment that we had by cutting a log into lumber. We say this all the time: we’re changing people’s lives.”
Wood-Mizer began with a discussion between Don Laskowski and Dan Tekulve in 1982. They were an unlikely pair to launch Wood-Mizer because neither one was a sawmiller by trade. Dan Laskowski, a founding family member, recalled, “It was one of those crazy ideas because they had no experience in making a sawmill, they had no experience in using a sawmill, this was a whole brand new world to them, and their idea was to make a bandmill using a thin-kerf band, which many people had tried, and they had all failed.”
Dave Mann, a 30+ year veteran employee with Wood-Mizer recalled, “Don and Dan were amazing guys. They got their heads together and scratched it out on a piece of paper and they talked about it and then Don said to Dan, ‘see what you can do.’ Dan took that home, and the next thing you know, he had a machine built. He just made it come to life.”
The first portable sawmill started out of necessity because it was hard to get lumber from sawmills. Don and Dan decided to develop a small sawmill that anyone could operate, from woodworkers to log home builders to pallet companies.
In 1982, Joe Bistrovich of New York bought the very first Wood-Mizer portable sawmill after seeing a magazine advertisement. Personally delivered and trained by Wood-Mizer founder, Don Laskowski, Joe became the first person to own a Wood-Mizer sawmill.
Jeff Laskowski remembered, “Dan built the first sawmill, but ended up not having a log. I said, ‘I’ve got a log’, drove the sawmill up next to it, and loaded it onto the bed. We looked down the board and it was as flat as could be and we thought, ‘Whoa, this thing actually cuts wood.’”
The legacy of Don and Dan lives on through the company they built and the customers they served. While Wood-Mizer was the dream of Don and Dan, the company’s products helped a whole new generation of sawmillers and woodworkers take control of their future and pioneer their own future. “The thought that you could follow the dream of sawmilling, running your own business, being independent, taking care of your own machine, you didn’t really need anybody else to be able to go and make a living. And I think that was extraordinary and very attractive to a lot of people, as we know,” said Richard Vivers, a 30+ year employee with Wood-Mizer.
For more information on the Wood-Mizer story, visit https://woodmizer.com/us/About-Us/Inside-Wood-Mizer/Our-Beginnings.
