CASCO — The Maine International Trade Center recently announced that Hancock Lumber has been named Maine’s Exporter of the Year.
According to a news release, Hancock Lumber is the largest manufacturer of Eastern White Pine boards in North America. Hancock started its export business in 2007, and today ships its products all over the world.
Kevin Hynes, Sawmill Division COO, said, “Our export business has enabled the company to keep all three of our mills running and our employees working during the U.S. recession. That’s where the real credit goes, to our employees who have been flexible and able to adapt to new products and customers — on Monday, they are making one-inch boards for New York and on Tuesday, 33-millimeter lumber for China.”
Hancock is one of the few remaining lumber companies still growing its own trees, owning 12,500 acres of timberland in Cumberland and Oxford counties.
Kevin Hancock, a sixth-generation family member and the company’s president, said, “It is exciting to see a natural resource growing abundantly in Maine, manufactured in Maine and sold around the world. Our manufacturing facilities have developed exceptional flexibility and our sales team has been able to use that flexibility to customize products for a particular region of the world. It’s really very exciting to see a unit of lumber in Casco, Bethel or Pittsfield, Maine, and know it is bound for global markets.”
Established in 1848, Hancock Lumber Co. has 200 manufacturing employees in Maine with sawmills in Casco, Bethel and Pittsfield. In 2011, Hancock Lumber purchased more than 50 million board feet of Eastern White Pine logs and spent more than $30 million in the Maine economy from its manufacturing operations alone. Hancock Lumber also operates 10 retail locations across Maine and New Hampshire.
Hancock Lumber will be one of four companies to be recognized at the Maine International Trade Day on May 24 at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.
¦ HANCOCK LUMBER will be one of four companies to be recognized at the Maine International Trade Day on May 24 at the Samoset Resort in Rockport.
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