Business View Magazine | April 2021

69 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2021 ELK CREEK FOREST PRODUCTS stay-at-home orders. When those orders were lifted, lumber sales took off and have remained elevated ever since. Elk Creek Forest Products saw its volume increase 15 percent. That was great news after the slowdown, but there were new and seemingly ever-changing regulations the company had to comply with. “As a consequence, we kind of operated with one arm tied behind our back at times,” recalls Mark Kelly, Vice President of Operations, “and so achieving, particularly that extra volume, was a remarkable accomplishment – a testament to the people that we have on staff. We have unparalleled staff here, with our wood knowledge and our cross-training flexibility that allows different people to fill in as needed. In retrospect, it was fun to do all that extra business, but I think we have really walked away from 2020 with a lot of pride in what we were able to accomplish.” Versatility has been a part of Elk Creek Forest Products since the beginning. In 2001, Brett Slaughter (now ECFP President) left a corporate job to join his father’s business. At that time, Elk Creek Sales wasn’t much more than a basement telephone and a desire to succeed. Kelly joined a few months later, overseeing finances for the transactions Slaughter and his dad facilitated. Those three did about everything, from phone to forklift, for the first two years or so. Around 2003, they were able to rent a piece of land in Eugene, Oregon. Over the next decade they got new investors and moved a few more times before settling in to their current 20- acre property in McMinnville, Oregon. “So that’s a progression of our growth and history,” Slaughter reports. “We went from one employee to two, slowly to three, four, five, six and didn’t start getting any real momentum until after the recession in 2010. Mid-way through 2010