Montana Lumber Wholesaler Entering Spokane:

Lumber Yard Supply, Great Falls, Mt., will open a new distribution center early next year in Spokane, Wa., and has established an Employee Stock Ownership Plan.

The new branch expands its territory to include eastern Washington, northern Idaho, and northeast Oregon. 

Jason Bake, who has worked with LYS for nine years, will serve as branch manager for the new location, which expects to begin operations January 5, 2009.

As at its two Montana yards, LYS-Spokane will offer builders engineered wood products from iLevel by Weyerhaeuser. Weyerhaeuser had previously served by Spokane market by leasing reload space.

Owen Robinson, majority stockholder of LYS and the fourth generation to run the business his family founded 122 years ago, introduced an ESOP to reward long-time, loyal employees, after initially thinking "in my case that it was too late to make an ESOP work for my retirement planning."

"I thought if the business sold to a different company, that new company would need our employees," he said. "I realized, however, that wasn't necessarily the case and that our employees would not be protected."