Chip Trebilcock doesn’t always make business moves that make financial sense on the surface. He follows his heart and most importantly a higher calling and authority. As president and partner of Millwood Inc., Trebilcock guides the operations of one of the largest, vertically integrated forest products and packaging companies in the country. Prayer and listening for divine guidance from God certainly creates a unique culture at Millwood.
A perfect example of a decision that might make the corporate accountant squirm is the recent acquisition and complete overhaul of Graham Pallet located in Tompkinsville, Ken. Trebilcock said that his CFO wanted to know why he would buy a company that needed so much tender loving care when it would be more cost effective to start from scratch.
This decision was rooted in something that Trebilcock learned from the Bible about waiting on God to provide growth opportunities instead of always trying to force the issue by being too presumptuous. Millwood learned about the potential to buy Graham Pallet when one of its sales representatives had a conversation with a man at church who just so happened to own a pallet plant in a location where Millwood was looking to expand.
Trebilcock and the rest of the senior leadership team prayed about this opportunity and after some visits with the owners decided to go ahead with the acquisition and concluded, “This is where God wants us to be.”
Trebilcock said, “Graham Pallet was a good location for us. We have two plants in Nashville (one a CHEP depot and one a white-wood facility). We needed a facility to support our national accounts and unit load strategy in that area, and God provided.”
Revamping the Graham Pallet Facility
When Millwood bought Graham Pallet, it knew the facility would need a lot of work to boost capacity and improve overall operations. Chip Trebilcock led the massive facility upgrade process. He said, “We went to a homeless shelter and hired people. We had a lot of cleanup to do at that facility because it had been neglected. We hired all the guys at the homeless shelter. Some of those guys are still with us today. And some of the guys have a great testimony to tell about what God has done in their lives.”
Very hands-on throughout the entire process, Millwood management went out with the workers racking, shoveling and sweeping up the place. One of the homeless men asked Trebilcock when he was ever homeless. He stopped and said, “Never. Well, I was homeless in a sense until I stopped and gave my life to Jesus Christ. Now part of my job is to take the love that God gives me and share it with others.”
Beyond some basic cleanup, Millwood completely overhauled the plant. This included installing new equipment, rearranging the plant layout and creating systems to organize production flows. It also involved stripping and re-siding the buildings, converting electrical systems, putting on a new roof, adding new lights and insulation, and installing a new furnace.
Trebilcock said, “Graham Pallet had a phenomenal history. It was one of the pioneers in the pallet business.” But Millwood wanted to boost capacity and ensure that its systems fit the approach of other Millwood facilities.
Graham had Brewer gang saws, some home-made cut-off saws to cut the cants to length, an old notcher and stacker, two old Vikings and a GBN, as well as a sawmill. Millwood replaced all of the cut-off saws with new Brewer twin-select cut-off saws, had one Brewer gang saw rebuilt by its own people at Liberty Technologies and pulled out all of the sorting lines for the lumber and put in different stacking machines. Millwood replaced the notcher, the chamfering machine, the sawdust system and the grinder.
“The facility has been totally redone,” said Trebilcock. Millwood bought a new Pendu notcher/stacker machine after seeing one hum at Meister’s Forest Products in Wisconsin. Trebilcock said, “I like the fact that the Pendu model was all one unit. I liked the way it stacked lumber, it was unlike anything that I had seen before. I liked the speed and production of it as well as the simplicity of the machine and how it worked.” Trebilcock credited Wilmer Hurst of Pendu for excellent support after the sale including some modification of the machine as needed.
Trebilcock credited all of its suppliers for excellent support after the sale including Morbark, Brewer, Viking, and Pendu. He bought a new Viking Turbo and had Jeff Purnell of J&J Machinery rebuild the other Viking. Trebilcock said, “Jeff does a phenomenal job. He tears the machine down to the frame, rebuilds it and paints it. When he gets finished with it, you would swear that you bought a brand new machine. And it’s probably half the price of a new one.”
Currently, Millwood is having the GBN line rebuilt as well. It has also repurposed machines from other facilities for the Graham Pallet location. Millwood owns two large fabrication shops that help upgrade existing equipment and develop proprietary equipment. Millwood strives to optimize its system so that old machines can have a new life at other facilities as it upgrades higher production facilities. That is one reason that Millwood uses many of the same manufacturers for a certain piece of equipment because its fabrication and maintenance staff know those machines and how to improve them and keep them running well. One plant will help the other when it comes to trouble shooting machinery problems.
Trebilcock said, “We constantly have new pallet equipment under development for our used and white-wood facilities at all times. We have what the rest of the market has. But we identify things that we see are issues, and when we go to the market we don’t find a solution to fix.”
“There is certain proprietary equipment in a plant that gives me an advantage. I will maintain and keep that until I find the next best thing. Then I may offer that old innovation to someone else to sell to industry,” he added.
Biblical-Based Leadership Principles
Headquartered in Vienna, Ohio, Millwood operates 26 locations employing about 1,300 team members. Millwood is vertically integrated going from the log to finished wood packaging to materials handling systems and packaging logistics services. The Millwood family of businesses generates over $200 million in sales each year. Although the company has its base in the wooden pallet market, it has expanded through the years by both startups and acquisitions. Millwood focuses on pallets, packaging materials, machinery systems, logistics, lumber, and sustainability. See the sidebar for a complete breakdown of its operations. Millwood owns Liberty Technologies, Millwood Logistics Services and Milltree Lumber Holdings .
The three men who lead the executive team for Millwood are Lionel “Chip” Trebilcock, president and partner, Steve Miller, president and partner, and Ron Ringness, executive vice president and partner. Each of these men shares core values and has years of experience working together. Trebilcock borrowed an expression from Scripture (1 Corinthians 12:12-20) explaining that Millwood operates similar to a body where each part has its function and skillset. Trebilcock said, “None of us are more important than any other part. But if we are not operating in the gifts that God has given us, then we are not being the best that we can be.”
“Ron leads the sales effort. Brad Arnold and Rick Lombardo run the day-to-day operations. Tom Paskert oversees the finances as the CFO. Steve provides executive leadership to the organization, and my job is to bring innovation and forward thinking to the company.”
Explaining how this diversification of function operates in the real word, Trebilcock said, “Operations guys want to do the same thing day in and day out. And when you ask them to lead the innovation efforts, you get no innovation. All they want to do is get better at what they are already doing. But if all of us were innovators, we wouldn’t get anywhere either. Innovators are looking for the next big idea and are not focused on serving existing customers and filling current orders.”
The Millwood Way
Vision and organization are two key attributes that drive Millwood’s growth. Trebilcock said, “We live in a society today where everybody is expecting to get things for less money. If we don’t change how we are doing things, then the only way we can cut cost is to make less profit. If I am not always innovating, then I begin to lose and die.”
“My grandfather taught me a long time ago, you have two options in life; you either grow or you die. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about personal or business or spiritual life,” explained Trebilcock.
The vision is the “Reinventing Unit Load Technology” concept. Organizational planning is the way this gets done. Millwood has measurable criteria that it uses to evaluate how well management is carrying out the long-range plan for each facility.
“A lot of people have a great plan for getting in business, but once they get in business they deviate down rabbit trails and maybe even forget why they got in business in the first place. Then pretty soon the business fails,” said Trebilcock.
Millwood has avoided this trap by putting in place a 1, 3 and 5 year plan for each facility. Having a plan helps keep the facility focused, prevents chaos and provides measurable goals to gauge progress. Trebilcock said, “There is a Scripture that says take the vision and write it upon a tablet so that those that read it can run with it.”
Management went in and analyzed the bottle necks and production flows at the Graham facility. Trebilcock said, “Everything that is successful is organized. Graham Pallet when we bought it was chaos. They used old pallets to stack cutstock on and every pallet had a different amount on them.”
Millwood layed out the inventory areas so that everything had a place, built shop pallets that were all the same size so that inventory was easier to manage, color coded different material and reorganized the outside cant yard so that the most widely used sizes were the closest to the mill. A new ERP system managed production flows.
Trebilcock looked for places to add equipment so that people add value to the process not just do work. “We took a line that had 14 people on it, and now it is down to four people. These people are running equipment. Workers get paid more money, and we lowered our cost. We did not get rid of anybody there even though we had more people than we needed. We have boosted production requiring more people. Now we are running more volume through that facility than they have in ten years. The head count is now doing productive things not just stacking lumber.”
Snapshot of the Millwood Operations
• Twenty six Millwood-owned locations including the corporate headquarters. Over 100 pallet & lumber manufacturing facilities located throughout the U.S. affiliated in a committed program to support our National Accounts initiative.
• Employs about 1,300 team members with over $200 million in sales.
• Produces about 75,000 new pallets per week and 120,000 pallets recycled per week.
• Produces in excess of 50 million bf of lumber per year (2 sawmills)
Pallets
• New Pallets – Both hand and machine nailed capabilities.
• Recycled Pallets – Managing depots for CHEP USA and running separate white-wood pallet facilities.
• Alternative Materials (Plastic, corrugate, metal, composite)
• PalletView™ – Customer account management and ordering system that facilitates management of proprietary pallet and packaging pools.
• Unit Load – Developing a pallet and packaging lab as well as a team of packaging specialists.
Packaging Materials
• Offers a wide variety of packaging materials including: stretch film, shrink wrap, strapping, corrugated packaging and unit load expertise.
Machinery Systems
• Designs and manufactures stretch wrap, pallet handling, and conveying systems. Also offers parts and services solutions.
Logistics
• Operates 3PL warehousing, fulfillment, distribution, trucking services. Also has vendor managed inventory and tracking systems capable of handling almost any packaging challenge.
Lumber
• Sawmill operations with the ability to supply both hardwood and softwood lumber.
• Owns a softwood lumber brokerage firm, oversees its own timber felling crews, and can provide a wide variety of specialized lumber products.
• Provides heat treatment and certification service to comply with international regulations.
Sustainability
• Prides itself on being a green company with environmentally responsible products. This includes recycling wood, plastic materials and corrugate as well as providing tracking and packaging management systems to reduce overall waste in the supply chain.
For more information on Millwood, visit www.millwoodinc.com or view a video at http://millwoodinc.com/we-are-millwood.aspx
