Helsel Lumber Mill Inc.
  3446 Johnstown Road,   Duncansville, PA 16635

  Phone: 814-696-0869
  Fax: 814-696-3857   Info@helsellumber.com

Helsel Lumber honored for exporting successes

January 2006 - Helsel Lumber Mill and the Southern Alleghenies Planning and Development Commission make a good team.  “Companies like Helsel’s working with Southern Alleghenies are making a difference in this community and around the country,” U.S. Rep. Bill Shuster, R-9th District, said Friday as he presented the Juniata Township business with the U. S. Commercial Service’s Export Achievement Certificate.

The Export Achievement Award recognizes U.S. Companies that have made their first export sale or entered a new overseas market with the assistance from the Department of Commerce’s U. S. Commercial Service.  “Helsel Lumber is an excellent example of how a small company can reach out to foreign markets from central Pennsylvania” said Shuster, a member of the Small Business Committee in Congress.  “Small and medium-sized firms like Helsel Lumber account for almost 97 percent of all U. S. exporters and are the backbone of our economy because they provide good jobs and quality services.”

Shuster also presented the SAPDC with the U.S. Commercial Service’s Certificate of Appreciation for Achievement in Trade, which recognizes export assistance and promotion organizations that the U.S. Commercial Service partners with to assist U.S. companies in exporting.  SAPDC is a Regional Export Network Center of Pennsylvania’s Department of Community and Economic Development that provides export assistance to companies in a six county area.

With joint export counseling from the U.S. Commercial Service in Pittsburgh and Beijing, China, and the SAPDC, in 2005 Helsel Lumber was able to sign a representative in the Chinese market.  “We can work with companies and provide market research, but if the company doesn’t follow up it isn’t worth anything,” said Diana L. McClure, SAPDC international trade specialist.  “Jim (Burger), Helsel’s vice president of sales and marketing) realizes he has to be diversified, the hardwood industry is very competitive and he is very proactive.  It took him nearly two years to get into the Chinese market; it is very difficult to get into.”  Burger said he appreciates the assistance the company has received.

Helsel Lumber has added 12 employees and a second shift in the past two months, bringing the work force up to 80.  The company also has purchased two pieces of equipment. 

Exports make up a significant percent of the company’s business as Helsel Lumber ships to China, Germany, Canada, Spain, Belgium, Portugal and the United Kingdom and are talking with representatives in Mexico and Vietnam.  “Thirty-five percent of our business is in the foreign markets and we would like to get it up to 50 percent or more,” Burger said.  “We hope to get it there this year and will if we get into the Vietnam market.  We are inches away from signing a contract with Vietnam.

Burger and Helsel Lumber plan to increase their presence in international markets and will continue to utilize U.S. Commercial Services and SAPDC assistance.  “Either you keep up with the high technology today or you are left in the dust,” Burger said.  “We should grow over the next year or two – how big we want to be, I don’t know.  You can’t stagnate.”

Company President Chuck Salyards, who along with Burger and Tim and Kevin Helsel, sons of founder Ralph Helsel, own the company today, said he is amazed by its success.  “Who would have thought we would be shipping lumber all over the world,” Salyards said.  “It still amazes me we are sending lumber all over the world from a little place like Blue Knob.”

Source – Altoona Mirror, January 16,2006