Pallet Enterprise: What is the best piece of business advice you have ever received?
Montey: The best piece of business advice I’ve received is to be honest. If you make it a practice to lie, then you have to work harder to keep up with all the lies. By telling the truth, you make doing the rest of your job easier, because then there’s only one version to remember. Honesty helps establish trusting relationships, which are crucial for long-term successful business partnerships.
Pallet Enterprise: What is one thing you do at your company that is different from other pallet companies?
Montey: One thing we do that’s different from most pallet companies is we sell industrial grade lumber. Our company started 40 years ago selling custom-sized pallets and over time we purchased saws to cut the lumber we needed internally. If there was a pallet size other than a 48×40 GMA, we wanted to make it. Since we were already cutting lumber to make odd-size pallets and we had the infrastructure in place, it made sense to cut and sell more lumber to pallet and other manufacturing companies.
Pallet Enterprise: How/why did you first get involved in the industry?
Montey: American Pallet is my family’s business, and I first became involved at a young age. I began in the industry spending high school summers working at the pallet yard. When I was a teenager, my dad taught me how to drive a forklift, and I remember thinking, “No way – this isn’t for me!”
I didn’t intend to work at my family’s business after college, but the great recession changed my priorities. I’m bilingual in Spanish, so I started working in human resources and developed our safety and new hire training program. Then, I moved into dispatching and inside sales, where I stayed for about a year, and eventually I moved into full-time sales and helped our business grow. I’ve been working in lumber and pallet sales for five years. Earlier this year I was made partner at our company.
Pallet Enterprise: What is the best part of working in this industry?
Montey: For me the best part about working in this industry is the opportunity for involvement. I’ve served on the Western Pallet Association’s board of directors for two years and volunteered on the Nature’s Packaging web committee to help it launch in March 2016. It’s an exciting time to be involved in the wood packaging industry, and I have a lot of passion for the work I do. Since then, I’ve branched out to start my own company, Gingerie Media, where I offer social media and blogging services to wood product companies and other organizations. I blog and manage social media for Nature’s Packaging, and I also oversee social media for the Western Pallet Association.
