Western Retail Lumbermen's Association Opens California Office

The big event prepared for at the February ,conve.ntion of the Western Retail Lurnbermens' Association at Spokane, Wash., has become a matter of fact.

A. L. Porter, the veteran Secretary of the Association, arrived in California the middle of March, and after visiting at San Francisco, where he called on the trade, and at F'resno, where he interviewed J. C. Ferger, Director of the Association and recent President, he came to Los Angeles'where he went actively about the work of putting into being and ,operation the first branch office that this great Association has known in all of its years of successful activity.

After looking the city over he selected commodious and attractive ,office space at ll25 Lane Mortgage Building, on the floor recently taken over by the Chas. R. McCorm,ick Lumber Company, part of which they are su,b-leasing.

Mr. Porter is getting things in shape jurst as fast as possible, and expects to have the branch work going by the lOth of April. An office manager will be employed to be in active charge of the 'office, and Mr. Porter and his two chief assistants expect to ,alternate in working in this territory for the remainder of the year at least.

As soon as Mr. Porter gets the Association work lined up he w,ill return to Spokane, and Mr. M. H. McCal'I, hRs Assistant Secretary, will come to Los Angeles to look after the work. Mr. Roy Brorvn, Traffic Manager of the Association will also come dou'n to look lthe field over, and arrange the traffic department activities of the Los Angeles office.

All of the active departments of the Western will be put to work for the southwestern territory th,rough the California office. The insurance department, the traffic de* partment, and the general service department will be in operation in.,a few weeks,.

New mem,bers will be solic,ited, and the same sort of service will be given from Cali{ornia which the members have heretofore been getting from the Spokane office direct. The office will be an information bureau also where may be obtained anything in the line of rlumber in'formation concerning the entire western lumber industry.

Mr. Porter is very enthusiastic concerning the prospects for the California office. Watching the growth of California in a lum,ber and building way for the past several years, he decided that an office in this territory was entirely essential to the welfare and future of his organization, with the result that it is now in the m'aking.

The Western Retail Lumber,men's Association is one of the great retail lumber organizations of the country, and unquestionably one of the most progressive. It was the first retail lumber association to incorporate into its associational activities the distribution of ideas concerning the modern merchandising of lumber.

It was the creator of the first retail lumber plan book systems that the industry ever knew, and from the old Porter-Ballard Plan B,ook created by Mr. Porter and his associates many years ago for one of the services of thiis association, has grown the tremendous tide of retail lu'mber home building that has now spread from ocean to ocean.

Mr. Porter and the Western Association started preaching the creating of business, the sale of business ideas, and the duty of the retail lumberman to be a home builder and community builder, many years before most, of the lumber Associations of the United States ever dreamed of such things.

And this organization has carried this work forward steadily a.nd consistently from that day to this, spreading the gospel of building service, building thinking, etc.

The Association issued a very attractive and interesting organ called The Western Retail Lumberman, published monthly for its members, that does a great deal o-f good.

The California l-umber Merchant welcomes The Western Retail Lumber Association to California as a resident.