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LEANING IN
TO LEAN By Jessica Johnson
Vaagen Bros. Lumber has always done things a little bit differently. COLVILLE, Wash. uane Vaagen says that over his decades in the lumber business, he’s heard the same thing over and over. It’s a chorus really, when he
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tours people through his mill: “That won’t work.” He says over the years as his family business has tried different things and pushed things past their specs and really their life expectancy, it’s always the same. “That’s not going to work like that.” And yet Vaagen always finds a way to not only make it work, but make it great. For over four generations, Vaagen Bros. Lumber has produced dimensional lumber to the tune today of 175MMBF in the town of Colville, Wash., the last “big” small town in the U.S. before the Canadian border in eastern Washington. Vaagen says first it was in the 1970s when they installed a lumber sorter from a Southern engineering and manufacturing firm that he heard the speculation that he wasn’t going to get his chosen technology to work. In late 2020, that lumber
sorter is still going. “I learned to just agree, because they are probably right. I just don’t know if it’s not going to work in 30 years or 80 years,” Vaagen laughs. As Vaagen’s daughter, Emily Baker, serving the family business as Lean Team Leader, is quick to point out, “We might get frustrated with some of our vintage machinery, but its fed families. Its worked, and worked hard. We appreciate that.” The Vaagen family looks at their machinery as an asset, absolutely, but as Duane’s son, Kurtis, who now serves the family business as Vice President of Operations, explains: Everything is vintage but everything has been modified in some way. Nothing is operating on manufacturer spec—including that lumber sorter from 1976. In recent years there has been pres-
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