EL DORADO — Manager of Calion Lumber Co., Jose Covas spoke to the Civitan Club members about the history and current operations of Calion Lumber Co. on Thursday.
Covas was born in Puerto Rico and is bilingual in Spanish and English. When he was a couple of years old, his family moved to Wrangell, Alaska, where his father worked for a large sawmill. In 1976, his family moved back to Puerto Rico, where Covas worked at his uncles’ full-service garage after school.
In 1983, Covas moved to Hope, Arkansas where he graduated high school. From there, he went to various colleges and graduated from John Brown University with a bachelor’s degree in organizational management. He served in the Arkansas National Guard for six years, earned the Army Achievement Medal and was honorably discharged as a fire direction chief and Sergeant E5.
In 1988, Covas began his career in the wood-products industry where he started as a laborer for Willamette Industries, south of Junction City, in Lillie, Louisiana. He worked his way through various areas of the operation and was promoted to scheduler, shipping supervisor and finishing superintendent.
He joined the startup team at Del-Tin Fiber in 1988 as the shipping/finishing manager and later became the production manager for the medium density fiberboard manufacturer.
He joined the Calion Lumber Co. in 2005. Today, he is responsible for all aspects of the manufacturing and kiln drying operations for the company and works closely with the owner, Charlie Thomas, and the general manager, Rick Evans.
Charlie Thomas’ grandmother started the Calion Lumber Co., in the late 1800s in St. Louis, Missouri. The idea for the business was that they wanted to build sawmills in the south. They started out with three sawmills, one in Texas, one in Louisiana and one in Mississippi. “When they started building these sawmills and producing timber, their mantra was “cut out and get out,”’ Covas said.
In 1922, they moved all of their operations to the Calion, Arkansas because they saw great opportunity on the Ouachita river.
The depression hit the company hard in the 1930s and the company shut down for five years.
Charlie Thomas’ expertise was in land acquisition and he knew a lot about real-estate. In the 1950s, Thomas bought numerous acres of land, most of which he paid five dollars an acre for, Covas said. Thomas left the business for 17 years because he and his father were not getting a long. He went back to St. Louis and got his master’s degree and taught philosophy at Washington University.
In 1951, Thomas came back to the company and went to hardwood lumber school in Mississippi. After going to lumber school, he came back to the business and put in place a rule they still follow today. “He will not cut anymore than 40 to 50 percent of our standing timber, unless it is diseased or has pine in it,” Covas said.
In the 1950s, the company started the resaw operation and sold parts and pieces of timber. Later on in the 1950s, they went into selling pallets and boxes. With this service, they had to expand the sheds to keep up with demand, but in the late 50s there was a fire.
At that time, the company was starting to get into building furniture parts, and with the fire, they were able to focus solely on furniture dimensions. “Working up into the 70s, furniture dimensions became the main stay and they got rid of the pallet production,” Covas said. “They closed the building because they had to have a little more sophisticated place to make these dry parts going into all of the beautiful furniture.”
Later in the 70s, they began making cabinet parts, which became about 25 percent of their operations.
In about 1980, the company switched 100 percent to cabinet dimensions. Cabinet dimensions are still the main operation focus for the company to this day.
“In 2008, the housing bubble hit us really hard,” Covas said. “We went from 50 employees to 14 employees.”
The company was still able to run every step of the process without the plant, so they were able to keep their doors open and provide the product for the few customers who were still buying, Covas said.
In 2009, the business started picking back up. Currently, they have 64 employees. They have about seven or eight people that work in the lumber yard and the rest work in the plant, he said.
Today, the company owns approximately 42,000 acres of river bottom land that at the time Thomas bought it, was worthless. “The company owns from the boundaries of the preserve up north, pretty much up to Calion, along the Ouachita river,” Covas said. “So that’s a pretty good piece of property that he purchased for about five dollars an acre.”
The company has 67 hunting leases on their land, which provides a place for around 2,000 people to hunt. “We also have 2,000 acres for employees that work at Calion Lumber Co.,” Covas said.
The company produces about six million parts and pieces per year, of which they sell directly to manufacturers.
The company’s future plans are to keep doing what they are doing, he said. “We have great customers and we only see the business growing from here with the economy picking up,” Covas said. “Everybody wants cabinets and we are proud of what we do. We make our cabinet parts well and we’re going to stick with what we know.”
Kaitlyn Rigdon is a staff writer at the El Dorado News-Times and she may be reached at 870-862-6611 or by email, [email protected].