“Obviously we are looking for more people to hire, it is difficult to find people who want to come to work five days a week.” Will Verner, Operations Manager, Oroville Reman & Reload

Oroville Reman & Reload is not only looking to grow its business in Oroville, it continually is striving to hire more local people.

They’d like to be around 100 people, a number they’ve come close to recently, according to Will Werner, operations manager. However near the beginning of summer they were at 89 employees.

The company, which is part of the B.C-based Gorman Brothers company, has grown in volume of the timber products they produce, as well as in size, said Verner.

“We have purchased 11 acres of land in two years, including two warehouse buildings on the north side of the tracks that we have put machines in,” said Verner.

The company does things like take two inch rough boards and plane or saw them into one inch boards for their parent company and Gorman Brothers does the marketing. They also take boards and run them through their molder.

Company-wide 40 percent of their products are sold into the U.S. domestic market, for Reman and Reload, it’s more like 80 percent, according to Verner.

“Gorman Brothers has some overseas sales, they sell into about 28 countries,” he said.

Some of the boards are used for decking and some are used for rig matting in the oilfields. Other products the company makes include chipping for animal bedding, the shavings from Reman and Reload go to Princeton to a co-generator and some come back on trucks for animal bedding and wood pellets and the company loads them on to railcars for shipment. The company also does edge gluing and finger joining to make larger boards from pieces that otherwise would be scrapped.

The company, which started life in Oroville as the Oroville Bin & Pallet, is diversified and has to be because things can change in a hurry, according to Verner.

“The housing crisis didn’t have an affect on us, we didn’t see a big drop off because we don’t do dimensional lumber, we do special, custom cutting,” he said.

Located along Oroville’s railhead, Reload and Reman sends out 11 railroad cars a week. The company runs two eight-hour shifts, from 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and from 3:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.

“Obviously we are looking for more people to hire, it is difficult to find people who want to come to work five days a week. We’ve grown from 50 employees top nearly 100,” he said.

Recently they have been doing a test project with Zosel Lumber, also located in Oroville. Zosel has been milling pine logs and running custom cuts for the company.

“Last year they also did some stuff for us that they got from Colville. It created employment for them and gave us additional customers. They are local in Oroville and we are excited about it,” he said.

Gary De Von/staff photos Stockpiles of lumber at Oroville Reman & Reload. The company’s footprint in Oroville has grown by 11 acres in the past two years and continues to grow with a recent purchase of more land that they hope to develop for their wood products production. Gary DeVon/staff photo