Pushing the boundaries

Wood Products Northwest of Ellensburg, Wash., is continually testing its capabilities. Founder and president Robert Hamlin started as a one-man shop in 1989 and now has 21 employees in a 10,000-sq.-ft. facility. He says the company has grown steadily by embracing technology and remaining diversified to stay ahead of competition.

The shop expects to do about $3 million in sales this year, close to its peak. Primarily working within a 100-mile service radius throughout the state, with some projects extending to Idaho and Monana, the company has a strong following of clients in high-end residential sectors as well as commercial contractors in the health care industry and other market sectors.

Hamlin grew up in the nearby town of Roslyn and learned some skills from his dad who worked as a handyman carpenter doing business as Loyd’s Services. In his 20s, Hamlin set up his own nook in the corner of his father’s shop and started building furniture to sell at public markets and boutique stores. He officially made it a business under the name R.S. Cabinetry in 1989. R.S. Cabinetry was just a name Hamlin came up with for a small furniture business.

“The first real break I had in business was when Nutrisystem had just taken off as a brick-and-mortar store and was selling meal kits to customers. A guy who decided to put franchises all around western Idaho, Oregon and Washington showed up in Ellensburg, saw my furniture at a store, and asked me to make the lobby furniture for his store and then a reception desk. He kept sending me all around. I probably did 30 stores and realized I had a real business.”

Around the same time, Ellensburg set up a rural incubator program designed to foster new businesses. Hamlin applied and got accepted.

“The idea of the program was to give you a space, help you with tenant improvements, rent control, and they also had monthly networking with local business leaders that help you understand how to do business. So, after about 18 months, we exploded as a company.”

In September 1993, Hamlin bought the property where he built his current shop, a large warehouse in the center of town. The incubator program’s stringent requirements for bringing in outside business helped him choose the spot.

“The program required seven percent of business from outside the county. That made us broaden our horizons, and since then we’ve gone pretty far but we still try to stay within about 100 miles. The I-90 and I-82, which we're right next to, is of the biggest intersections in the northwest, and that’s where we planned the business strategically because we get materials faster than most of our competition.”

Hamlin married his wife, Kathleen, in 1994, and she became involved with the books and other management tasks. They successfully outgrew the incubator program and officially incorporated under the name Wood Products Northwest in 1996. The shop was added onto over the years, andnow has 2,000 sq. ft. dedicated to office and showroom space.

Ellensburg itself is a beneficial place for doing business, according to Hamlin, who’s seen it evolve and change his whole life. Home to Central Washington University, it has a diverse population and is only a few hours from Seattle, Spokane and the Tri-Cities area in the southeastern part of the state.

“We’re in a nice quiet rural community, within close proximity to the bigger cities. It’s big enough to have a lot of amenities here,” says Hamlin.

“It's actually a beautiful area. The only downfall is the land because it’s in the foothills and we get a lot of wind, but we’re in a rain shadow here so there’s no rain like in Seattle, and here it’salways sunny.”

Due to the appeal, nearby areas are increasingly building resort communities and such, bringing more work into the shop.

“Where I started the business in Roslyn, they’ve started a higher-end housing community with thousands of homes on multiple golf courses like Tumble Creek at Suncadia, and it’s the playground for Seattle. You see a lot of this. It’s two hours out of Seattle. There are lots of 5,000 to 10,000-sq.-ft. homes. We have so much work out in that area.”

The shop completes about 40 to 50 projects a year for residential and commercial customers.

“There was a time when we were 50/50 with more commercial. Now it’s 70 percent residential and 30 percent commercial, mostly in healthcare. But we do some work like college dorms and small bank remodels, things like that. I like the niche of the healthcare market. I think it has higher margins.”

Hamlin credits the mix for helping the shop through the pandemic. “During Covid we were considered an essential business because we were working on dorms and healthcare. We weathered through it. Competitors shut down but not us because we were diversified," he says.

“One of the biggest downturns was 2008. We weren’t affected because our market was big enough and we can shift things from one market to another.”

The shop gets work through designers, architects and builders, referrals and repeat customers.

“What's crazy is most of our work is by referral for just making good product. We’ve never looked for work. I've never spent a dollar on advertising in my life. There were times I’d get 10 leads and had to turn down eight of them.”

Hamlin emphasizes that setting up the shop for flat-based nested manufacturing with cutting edge machinery launched the company into the healthcare sector, its biggest commercial market.

“Also, the way we’ve evolved with nested base, we can build a residential job right next to a commercial job, and the employees don’t have to rethink much. We put simplistic ideas in our production flow, and we can steer to different market segments and different product lines almost flawlessly. I think that’s made us successful compared to only doing commercial or residential.”

Of the 21 employees, nine work in the shop and four are installers, with the rest in administrationand management. The shop floor is divided into five departments: CNC machining, assembly, finishing, shipping, and installation.

Hamlin makes it a point to go to trade shows as often as possible to properly supply all departments with the latest equipment, and recently attended the 2024 IWF in Atlanta.

“The show did not disappoint,” he says. "It was great to not only see all the large new machinery in one place and how it can improve our manufacturing, but also to explore cutting-edge technologies and products with materials, hardware, and software that will enhance our custom cabinetry services.

“We particularly enjoyed seeing all the new features with Hexagon, whose Cabinet Vision software we use to run our production. We are currently finalizing deals with Biesse for a new 5’x12’ CNC flat table machine with auto-feed and unloading capabilities. Additionally, we are working with Altendorf and Felder to upgrade our sliding table saw. After visiting with SandPro, we plan on adding another larger downdraft sanding table to our finish department.”

Hamlin says the company is committed to making technological and machinery upgrades, prioritizing safety and efficiency to stay in the forefront of client and market-driven designs.

He and Kathleen are now starting the process of a succession plan. Their middle son, Dakota, is preparing to take over the day-to-day operations.

“We don’t know where all that’s going to lead yet. We’re just starting the conversations. There has to be something in place,” says Hamlin. “We have a great staff. We really do. Our challenge is finding new replacements. In my day, shop and industrial arts were taught in high school, and now there’s not much of that anymore.

“Dakota is a natural with his age (28). He can network and use social media very well and he has to do that. He's outpaced me in growing his contacts by twice of what I did when I was his age in my 20s. He's amazing. He knows he has to embrace his own clientele and make his own business.”

Learn more at woodproductsnorthwestinc.com.

Grizzly G1033X 20” planer, B0593 jointer, G0513X2 band saw & G0672 dust collector • Ironwood S113K 36” wide belt sander • Ritter R-701 edge sander • Sand Pro DL downdraft table• Sames Kremlin 10C18 & 15C25 AirMix paint pumps • Kaiser SM11 & SX6 air compressors • Biesse Akron 1440 A edge bander & Rover B CNC • Travaini vacuum pump • Altendorf F45 Elmo slider • Saw Stop 10” industrial cabinet saw • Belfab JNBM-OP750 dust collector • DustekM750 dust collector • Cabinet Vision CAD/CAM software

Originally published in the November 2024 issue of Woodshop News.