National Retailers New President

Described as the "hardest working vice-president the National has ever had," by retiring president S. L. Forrest of Lubbock, Texas, Norman P. Mason, new president of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Washington, D. C., brings to the office of president unmatched ability for serving the industry.

Mr. Mason is a lumber dealer in North Chelmsford, Massachusetts, with the William P. Proctor Company, and was elected president of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association during the Seattle, Washington, meeting, October 2L, 22, and 23. Born in Willsboro, New York, on Lake Champlain, where his father ran a pulp mill, he was brought up with an acquaintance of wood products. In 1910 his father bought a hardware business in Plattsburg, New York, and 2 years later, after grad_ uating from high school, young Mason went to work in that business.

During World W'ar I, he served as a rad.io operator in the Navy on the U.S.S. Manchuria-a troopship plying between New York and Brest, France. In l9A fr" ..rterea the retail lumber business.

Mr. Mason is past president of the Northeastern Retail Lumbermen's Association, and during the war and the immediate postwar period as vice president.of the NRLDA, has served on many important committees. He has repre_ sented the industry on the Construction Industry Aavis_ gry Council of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, on the lumber manufacturers' liaison committee, and as a member of the industry advisory committee to CpA and industry advisory committee to OPA.

In his own community during the war, he was a member of the local selective service board and at present is a mem_ ber of the Massachusetts Emergency Housing Committee and the North Chelmsford Appeals Board.

He is married and has a wife and two children_a son, 2l years old, who served in the Navy in World War II and at present is at Brown University; and a daughter 1g, now attending the Katherine Gibbs School in Boston.

Mr. Mason lives in the country and calls farming 3 acres "gardening." He has a large vegetable garden and a fruit orchard. His hobbies are golfing, which he plays in the 90's, and skiing and hiking, as a member of the Apialachian Mountain Club.