Copyright 2012© Pallet Enterprise magazine — All rights reserved, Industrial Reporting, Inc. 1nc.

Chip Trebilcock doesn’t always makebusiness moves that make financialsense on the surface. He follows hisheart and most importantly a higher call-ing and authority. As president and part-ner of Millwood Inc., Trebilcock guidesthe operations of one of the largest, ver-tically integrated forest products andpackaging companies in the country.Prayer and listening for divine guidancefrom God certainly creates a unique cul-ture at Millwood.

A perfect example of a decision thatmight make the corporate accountantsquirm is the recent acquisition andcomplete overhaul of Graham Pallet lo-cated in Tompkinsville, Ken. Trebilcocksaid that his CFO wanted to know whyhe would buy a company that needed somuch tender loving care when it wouldbe more cost effective to start fromscratch.

This decision was rooted in some-thing that Trebilcock learned from theBible about waiting on God to providegrowth opportunities instead of alwaystrying to force the issue by being toopresumptuous. Millwood learned aboutthe potential to buy Graham Pallet whenone of its sales representatives had aconversation with a man at church whojust so happened to own a pallet plant ina location where Millwood was lookingto expand.

Trebilcock and the rest of the seniorleadership team prayed about this op-portunity and after some visits with theowners decided to go ahead with the ac-quisition and concluded, “This is where

God wants us to be.”Trebilcock said, “Graham Pallet was a

good location for us. We have two plantsin Nashville (one a CHEP depot and onea white-wood facility). We needed afacility to support our national accountsand unit load strategy in that area, andGod provided.”

Revamping theGraham Pallet Facility

When Millwood bought Graham Pal-let, it knew the facility would need a lotof work to boost capacity and improveoverall operations. Chip Trebilcock ledthe massive facility upgrade process. He

said, “We went to a homeless shelter andhired people. We had a lot of cleanup todo at that facility because it had beenneglected. We hired all the guys at thehomeless shelter. Some of those guysare still with us today. And some of theguys have a great testimony to tell aboutwhat God has done in their lives.”

Very hands-on throughout the entireprocess, Millwood management wentout with the workers racking, shovelingand sweeping up the place. One of thehomeless men asked Trebilcock whenhe was ever homeless. He stopped andsaid, “Never. Well, I was homeless in asense until I stopped and gave my life to

Millwood Overhauls Graham

Pallet, Follows Unconventional

Expansion PlansBy Chaille Brindley

Building on Graham’s Legacy: Chip Trebilcock (right), president and partner ofMillwood Inc., worked with Mike Scoby (left), sales/plant manager at Graham Pallet,to boost production and improve plant efficiency.

PALLET ENTERPRISEAs seen in June 2012

Copyright 2012© Pallet Enterprise magazine — All rights reserved, Industrial Reporting, Inc.2

Snapshot of the Millwood Operations• Twenty six Millwood-owned locations including the corporate headquar-

ters. Over 100 pallet & lumber manufacturing facilities located throughout theU.S. affiliated in a committed program to support our National Accounts initia-tive.

• Employs about 1,300 team members with over $200 million in sales.

• Produces about 75,000 new pallets per week and 120,000 pallets recycledper 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 separatewhite-wood pallet facilities.

• Alternative Materials (Plastic, corrugate, metal, composite)

• PalletView™ - Customer account management and ordering system thatfacilitates management of proprietary pallet and packaging pools.

• Unit Load – Developing a pallet and packaging lab as well as a team ofpackaging 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 handlingalmost 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 fellingcrews, and can provide a wide variety of specialized lumber products.

• Provides heat treatment and certification service to comply with interna-tional regulations.

Sustainability• Prides itself on being a green company with environmentally responsible

products. This includes recycling wood, plastic materials and corrugate as wellas providing tracking and packaging management systems to reduce overallwaste in the supply chain.

For more information on Millwood, visit www.millwoodinc.com or view avideo at http://millwoodinc.com/we-are-millwood.aspx

Jesus Christ. Now part of my job is totake the love that God gives me andshare it with others.”

Beyond some basic cleanup,Millwood completely overhauled theplant. This included installing newequipment, rearranging the plant layoutand creating systems to organize pro-duction flows. It also involved strippingand re-siding the buildings, convertingelectrical systems, putting on a newroof, adding new lights and insulation,and installing a new furnace.

Trebilcock said, “Graham Pallet had aphenomenal history. It was one of thepioneers in the pallet business.” ButMillwood wanted to boost capacity andensure that its systems fit the approachof other Millwood facilities.

Graham had Brewer gang saws, somehome-made cut-off saws to cut the cantsto length, an old notcher and stacker,two old Vikings and a GBN, as well as asawmill. Millwood replaced all of thecut-off saws with new Brewer twin-se-lect cut-off saws, had one Brewer gangsaw rebuilt by its own people at LibertyTechnologies and pulled out all of thesorting lines for the lumber and put indifferent stacking machines. Millwoodreplaced the notcher, the chamferingmachine, the sawdust system and thegrinder.

“The facility has been totally redone,”said Trebilcock. Millwood bought a newPendu notcher/stacker machine afterseeing one hum at Meister’s ForestProducts in Wisconsin. Trebilcock said,“I like the fact that the Pendu model wasall one unit. I liked the way it stackedlumber, it was unlike anything that I hadseen before. I liked the speed and pro-duction of it as well as the simplicity ofthe machine and how it worked.”Trebilcock credited Wilmer Hurst ofPendu for excellent support after the saleincluding some modification of the ma-chine as needed.

Trebilcock credited all of its suppliersfor excellent support after the sale in-cluding Morbark, Brewer, Viking, andPendu. He bought a new Viking Turboand had Jeff Purnell of J&J Machineryrebuild the other Viking. Trebilcocksaid, “Jeff does a phenomenal job. Hetears the machine down to the frame,rebuilds it and paints it. When he getsfinished with it, you would swear thatyou bought a brand new machine. And

it’s probably half the price of a newone.”

Currently, Millwood is having theGBN line rebuilt as well. It has alsorepurposed machines from other facili-ties for the Graham Pallet location.

Millwood owns two large fabricationshops that help upgrade existing equip-ment and develop proprietary equip-ment. Millwood strives to optimize itssystem so that old machines can have anew life at other facilities as it upgrades

Copyright 2012© Pallet Enterprise magazine — All rights reserved, Industrial Reporting, Inc. 3nc.

Complete Overhaul: Millwood bought a new Morbark 2600 Wood Hog in additionto stripping and re-siding the building, converting electrical systems, putting on a newroof, adding new lights and more.

higher production facilities. That is onereason that Millwood uses many of thesame manufacturers for a certain pieceof equipment because its fabrication andmaintenance staff know those machinesand how to improve them and keep themrunning well. One plant will help theother when it comes to trouble shootingmachinery problems.

Trebilcock said, “We constantly havenew pallet equipment under develop-ment for our used and white-wood fa-cilities at all times. We have what therest of the market has. But we identifythings that we see are issues, and whenwe go to the market we don’t find asolution to fix.”

“There is certain proprietary equip-ment in a plant that gives me an advan-tage. I will maintain and keep that until Ifind the next best thing. Then I may of-fer that old innovation to someone elseto sell to industry,” he added.

Biblical-Based Leadership PrinciplesHeadquartered in Vienna, Ohio,

Millwood operates 26 locations employ-ing about 1,300 team members.Millwood is vertically integrated goingfrom the log to finished wood packagingto materials handling systems and pack-aging logistics services. The Millwoodfamily of businesses generates over$200 million in sales each year. Al-though the company has its base in thewooden pallet market, it has expandedthrough the years by both startups and

acquisitions. Millwood focuses on pal-lets, packaging materials, machinerysystems, logistics, lumber, andsustainability. See the sidebar for a com-plete breakdown of its operations.Millwood owns Liberty Technologies,Millwood Logistics Services andMilltree Lumber Holdings .

The three men who lead the executiveteam for Millwood are Lionel “Chip”Trebilcock, president and partner, SteveMiller, president and partner, and Ron

Ringness, executive vice president andpartner. Each of these men shares corevalues and has years of experienceworking together. Trebilcock borrowedan expression from Scripture (1Corinthians 12:12-20) explaining thatMillwood operates similar to a bodywhere each part has its function andskillset. Trebilcock said, “None of us aremore important than any other part. Butif we are not operating in the gifts thatGod has given us, then we are not beingthe best that we can be.”

“Ron leads the sales effort. BradArnold and Rick Lombardo run the day-to-day operations. Tom Paskert over-sees the finances as the CFO. Steveprovides executive leadership to the or-ganization, and my job is to bring inno-vation and forward thinking to the com-pany.”

Explaining how this diversification offunction operates in the real word,Trebilcock said, “Operations guys wantto do the same thing day in and day out.And when you ask them to lead the in-novation efforts, you get no innovation.All they want to do is get better at whatthey are already doing. But if all of uswere innovators, we wouldn’t get any-where either. Innovators are looking forthe next big idea and are not focused onserving existing customers and fillingcurrent orders.”

Millwood Makeover: Management went in and analyzed the bottlenecks and pro-duction flows at the Graham facility. They brought a greater degree of organization tobetter utilize workers.

Copyright 2012© Pallet Enterprise magazine — All rights reserved, Industrial Reporting, Inc.4

The Millwood WayVision and organization are two key

attributes that drive Millwood’s growth.Trebilcock said, “We live in a societytoday where everybody is expecting toget things for less money. If we don’tchange how we are doing things, thenthe only way we can cut cost is to makeless profit. If I am not always innovat-ing, then I begin to lose and die.”

“My grandfather taught me a longtime ago, you have two options in life;you either grow or you die. It doesn’tmatter if you are talking about personalor business or spiritual life,” explainedTrebilcock.

The vision is the “Reinventing UnitLoad Technology” concept. Organiza-tional planning is the way this gets done.Millwood has measurable criteria that ituses to evaluate how well managementis carrying out the long-range plan foreach facility.

“A lot of people have a great plan forgetting in business, but once they get inbusiness they deviate down rabbit trailsand maybe even forget why they got inbusiness in the first place. Then prettysoon the business fails,” saidTrebilcock.

Millwood has avoided this trap byputting in place a 1, 3 and 5 year plan for

Finding Ways to Lower Cost: Chip Trebilcock said, “We live in a society today where everybody is expecting to get things forless money. If we don’t change how we are doing things, then the only way we can cut cost is to make less profit.”

Top Notch: Millwood installed a new Pendu notcher/stacker combo machine be-cause of its speed, simplicity, and production. Trebilcock said, “It was unlike anythingthat I had seen before.”

each facility. Having a plan helps keepthe facility focused, prevents chaos andprovides measurable goals to gaugeprogress. Trebilcock said, “There is aScripture that says take the vision andwrite it upon a tablet so that those thatread it can run with it.”

Management went in and analyzedthe bottle necks and production flows atthe Graham facility. Trebilcock said,“Everything that is successful is orga-nized. Graham Pallet when we bought itwas chaos. They used old pallets to stackcutstock on and every pallet had a differ-ent amount on them.”

Millwood layed out the inventory ar-eas so that everything had a place, builtshop pallets that were all the same sizeso that inventory was easier to manage,color coded different material and reor-ganized the outside cant yard so that themost widely used sizes were the closestto the mill. A new ERP system managedproduction flows.

Trebilcock looked for places to addequipment so that people add value tothe process not just do work. “We took aline that had 14 people on it, and now itis down to four people. These people arerunning equipment. Workers get paidmore money, and we lowered our cost.We did not get rid of anybody there eventhough we had more people than weneeded. We have boosted production re-quiring more people. Now we are run-ning more volume through that facilitythan they have in ten years. The headcount is now doing productive thingsnot just stacking lumber.” PEPE