Sawmill Business Podcast

Today is the last episode that features our interviews from WORKBENCHcon! Our host, Steve, was a speaker at the event and while he was there, he had the opportunity to interview different influencers such as Jimmy Diresta, Ben Ueyda, The Wood Maven, Alma Villalobos, Minspired Living, and more! Follow along as we learn about their content creation secrets, the things that inspire the work they do, and how they plan to continue growing their brand and impacting their communities.

For the next two weeks, join us at WORKBENCHcon! Our host, Steve, was a speaker at the event and while he was there, he had the opportunity to interview different influencers within the Maker and Woodworking space. Follow along as we learn about their content creation secrets, the things that inspire the work they do, and how they plan to continue growing their brand and impacting their communities. Join the Woodpreneur community on Instagram and Facebook @acresoftimber.

For the next two weeks, join us at WORKBENCHcon! Our host, Steve, was a speaker at the event and while he was there, he had the opportunity to interview different influencers within the Maker and Woodworking space. Follow along as we learn about their content creation secrets, the things that inspire the work they do, and how they plan to continue growing their brand and impacting their communities.

On the podcast today is Annie and Michael Murphy from the Jacksonville based woodshop and sawmill, Eco Relics. Annie and Michael Murphy originally had careers in Stock Trading and Software but came to a point in their lives where they realized it was time for a change. With Michael’s background as a wooden toy maker and Annie’s passion as an environmentalist, they took the dive and opened a woodshop and lumberyard.  Fast-forward a few years and Eco Relics is now the largest Architectural Salvage Yard in the Southeast. Customers travel from Miami, Atlanta, Charleston, Savannah, Maine, and Minnesota to shop the unlimited variety of lumber stock, reclaimed items, and antiques that Eco Relics has to offer. With a 15,000 sq. ft. woodshop and another 50,000 sq. ft. of storage, it’s not a surprise that the business was even considered for a reality show last year! The Mission... With 40-60% of the nation’s landfills filled with building materials, Eco Relics mission began with efforts to keep building materials

Justin Kerkhove-Brandt joined the Banking Barns team two years ago and has taken the business from a small garage shop to a company with two storefront locations. Banking Barns was named when its founders who would salvage reclaimed barn wood realized they were “banking” on selling the wood they removed.  Since then, Banking Barns has moved away from solely producing items with a reclaimed aesthetic and now also produces epoxy designs. Read More HERE

Terran Arwood, president of Woodland Tree Service is located in Memphis TN. He has been in business since 2003 when a major windstorm devastated Shelby County, and he was working a job at a college. He and his roommates had some chainsaws and they started helping the area recover from the destruction. Born and raised in California, Terran, and been around tree-related work his entire life and it’s become his way of life. He gained a lot of knowledge of the giant sequoia trees with his friends and family in that business. Trees grow bigger and faster in Memphis than other places in the country, the amount of rainfall and weather is what allows them to grow so fast. Terran describes Memphis as an urban forest in itself. Something he notes as great for his business is when he started purchasing cranes, and Woodland Tree Service became well known for storm response early on. He had originally processed trees that they removed into firewood, which became a lucrative business thanks to BBQ restaurants which are hu

Today’s guest is a great example of a Woodpreneur with a dream that he’s made a reality. Ryan Penner of the Veteran owned, RST Timberworks!  Ryan discusses going full time after balancing his love of urban wood and woodworking with a full-time job. Ryan comes by his passion honestly, he’d always been interested in wood and woodworking and started a side business as a tree removal specialist while in the military. His interest in urban wood piqued when he realized some of the trees he was cutting down were too beautiful to end up as firewood or in a landfill. Ryan eventually decided to trust his entrepreneurial mindset and take a chance focusing solely on milling and woodworking. His current set up is pretty great, he has a small sawmill and mills customer logs that they bring or have brought out at a competitive rate. Thanks to his history doing tree removal, he also still has some friends in the industry who tip him off to good logs, he mills those and sells the lumber as well! He is currently air drying s

While pursuing a stitch fix-esque site one day, John Dupre was inspired while being led through the site questions heading down the path to his dream wardrobe. His inspiration turned into action as he realized that this sales model was exactly what the wood flooring business needed. Instantly running to the drawing board, John and his team tweaked, built, and re-built a similar algorithm specifically focused on wood flooring customers.  While Revel Woods sells directly to consumers, they also know that the wood flooring business rarely has more than 1-2 return customers within a lifetime. This is why, once they had perfected the above sales tool, they decided to focus on explaining its purpose, use, and algorithm to interior designers. With their experience in the field, interior designers instantly saw the problem that Revel Woods was solving with this tool and quickly became return customers. 

Jesse Born is a 23-year-old puzzle box Woodpreneur from New York. Jesse creates these puzzle boxes with different hidden compartments and sneaky latches! A full-time puzzle box maker before he even left high school, Jesse is a serious Woodpreneur, and we were so excited when Jesse reached out to us about coming onto the podcast!

Today we’re talking with family members and co-workers, Bobby and Joe of Trestlewood! Trestlewood began with the deconstruction of a Southern Pacific 12 mile long railroad trestle back in 1993. A 12-mile long trestle constructed from Douglas Fir and Redwood, the wood they took away from this project equaled to about 30 million board feet and they are still selling wood from this trestle to this day!

Get an inside look at how a former retired city worker is building a prolific and profitable portable sawmill business. Hear how he started, his partnerships, and what tools he used to grow his business. Aaron is also a current client of Acres of Timber! Check out his website at http://crosscutlumber.com and follow him on Instagram at http://instagram.com/crosscutlumber. What exactly is a Woodpreneur? So, why the term “woodpreneur”? When Steve first started Acres of Timber three years ago, the wood community and industry wasn’t what it is now.  Slab dealers, wood designers, and more specifically at the time – sawmill users, didn’t have a community or a brand and were going largely unnoticed by potential customers who would look instead to the Home Depot and Lowe’s of this world for their products. Steve sought to change that by creating the Sawmill Business Instagram account and the #sawmillbusiness hashtag as a way to share the products and creations that these innovative makers were producing. It didn’t

Join us for the fourth and final episode from the Logosol World Meeting in Sweden! For this final episode, we're talking with April Wilkerson, Ola Andersson, and the man himself - CEO and President of Logosol, Malte Frisk! In addition to networking with wood industry leaders from across the globe, we experienced a next-level example of "work-family" and a way of life that opened our minds. As a company, Logosol is incredibly innovative and provides a workplace that lets its employees thrive. Between their incredibly advanced and technology-driven products, tight-knit employees, and a happy workplace, one could say that Logosol is the "Google" of the Woodpreneur world. Join us again in this episode and get inspired to become a part of the Logosol family.  The World Meeting Curious about what went on behind the scenes at the Logosol World Meeting? Go on Instagram and use the hashtag #logosolwm2019 What exactly is a Woodpreneur? So, why the term “woodpreneur”? When Steve first started Acres of Timber thre

Join us for part 3 of the clip interviews from the Logosol World Meeting in Sweden! On this installment, we’re talking to Woodpreneur giant, Paul Lemiski of Canadian Woodworks and social media mastermind and arborist,@patkarlsson and @huggarolle. In addition to networking with wood industry leaders from across the globe, we experienced a next-level example of "work-family" and a way of life that opened our minds. As a company, Logosol is incredibly innovative and provides a workplace that lets its employees thrive. Between their incredibly advanced and technology-driven products, tight-knit employees, and a happy workplace, One could say that Logosol is the "Google" of the Woodpreneur world. @projectoftheday @isprzet.pl  The World Meeting Curious about what went on behind the scenes at the Logosol World Meeting? Go on Instagram and use the hashtag #logosolwm2019 @foxforestry @projectoftheday[/caption] What exactly is a Woodpreneur? So, why the term “woodpreneur”? When Steve first started Acres of Timb

Join us on part 2 of the clip interviews from the Logosol World Meeting in Sweden! We’re talking to marketing expert and daughter of the founder of Logosol, Katarina Byström, Tobias Elkind - aka @projectoftheday, and Tom Fox! That’s right, we went to the Logosol World Meeting and met up with some incredible minds and makers in the wood world! Not only that, but we were able to see what an innovative and forward-thinking company they are with some of the happiest employees (and customers) that we’ve ever seen. Join us throughout the next few weeks as we spend some time on the Woodpreneur Podcast with makers, sawmill owners, and wood business owners across the globe!  The World Meeting Curious about what went on behind the scenes at the Logosol World Meeting? Go on Instagram and use the hashtag #logosolwm2019 What exactly is a Woodpreneur? So, why the term “woodpreneur”? When Steve first started Acres of Timber three years ago, the wood community and industry wasn’t what it is now.  Slab dealers, wood de

Join us on part 1 of the clip interviews from the Logosol World Meeting in Sweden! We’re talking to Marcus Lindgren, Igor Goldman, Carlo Petrolo, and Glenn Lucas, some of the leading Woodpreneurs in the Logosol owner’s sphere. That’s right, we went to the Logosol World Meeting and met up with some incredible minds and makers in the wood world! Not only that, but we were able to see what an innovative and forward-thinking company they are with some of the happiest employees (and customers) that we’ve ever seen. Join us throughout the next few weeks as we spend some time on the Woodpreneur Podcast with makers, sawmill owners, and wood business owners across the globe!

Join us on this episode as we flashback to our interview at the 2019 Woodpreneur Summit with Paul Lemiski of Canadian Woodworks! With over 400,000 followers on his social media page and a business that is booming, Paul is one of the leading authorities when it comes to advice on growing your business and exploding on social media! Contact Paul Lemiski and Canadian Woodworks Instagram: @canadianwoodworks Website: https://www.canadianwoodworks.com/   What exactly is a Woodpreneur? So, why the term “woodpreneur”? When Steve first started Acres of Timber three years ago, the wood community and industry wasn’t what it is now.  Slab dealers, wood designers, and more specifically at the time – sawmill users, didn’t have a community or a brand and were going largely unnoticed by potential customers who would look instead to the Home Depot and Lowe’s of this world for their products. Steve sought to change that by creating the Sawmill Business Instagram account and the #sawmillbusiness hashtag as a way to share

Today’s guest is Nick Harvey from Bay Area Redwoods. We met Nick at the 2019 Urban Lumber Conference and knew we needed him on the show! Nick fell into the Woodpreneur sphere when he happened to see a pile of wood on the side of the road and stopped to check it out. The owner of the wood saw him and offered him not just the wood pile, but also a different pile of Redwoods that he had. Not knowing how to mill, Nick found a local mobile miller and had the wood milled right on his suburban home’s front lawn! Shortly thereafter, he happened to meet a board member from the “Save the Redwoods” organization who gave him a lead on what he said was "a few Redwoods". It turns out, they were giant Redwoods that were 5 ft in diameter and over 100 ft tall. With a yield of over 50,000 bd ft of wood - this was the moment that Nick says Bay Area Redwoods truly became a business. 

Today on the podcast we have the privilege of talking with Dwayne Sperber of Wudeward and the Wisconsin Urban Wood Non-Profit. In the midwest 15 years ago an urban wood movement emerged, this came about from identifying an abundant and underutilized product. Not wanting to waste some truly beautiful and storied wood, the private sector raised their hand and decided to find a way to use these trees. This led to the development of Wudeward, and a collective of other urban wood pioneers salvaging logs and sequestering carbon one tree at a time. In a nutshell, Dwayne organized Wudeward to bridge the gap between an abundance of lumber and those who can and should refine those products. The formation of Wisconsin Urban Wood was a realization of the importance of linking together all the supply chains. Dwayne doesn’t see himself as a leader but more as a member of a collective of many partners. Hearing about urban wood changed his life, and from there he was transformed from a corporate background to one of passion

On the show today is Bryant Dickens from Dickens and Son Sawmill. A fish biologist by trade, Bryant fell in love with live edge furniture in college. His passion really took off 11 years ago when he learned how expensive live edge furniture was, decided to figure out how to make his own designs, and sourced his wood from local tree service companies from what they considered their “tree waste” piles.  Bryant originally paid for local businesses to mill the logs for him but after increasing his earnings selling these slabs and also by making furniture, he purchased his first mill, which was soon upgraded to a Wood-Mizer LT35. He became very passionate about using a resource that is historically underutilized in Arizona, and salvaging wood from the urban forest became his way of combating that waste. Bryant explains further that 75% of what he does is sell raw slabs, and he is certain to pay for his logs even if folks would otherwise be dropping them off at the dump. He does this to give fair value to the tre

Today we’re talking to Wes Lewis, owner of James Wesley Furniture. Based out of Wichita, KS. Wes started working part-time out of his garage in 2015 and Two years later, he moved into a shop and now builds furniture full-time. With talents stretching from metal fabricating to furniture design and sawmilling, Wes is able to experiment in his design creations as well as create beautiful and unique bases for his products.