Vanport Manufacturing started in 1967 in the state of Oregon as log broker and manufacturer of construction lumber. Active in the American and Japanese markets, the new company’s specialty was sorting and producing for the best value from high quality timber in the region. Restrictions on log export and the influence of the Japanese market – which prized fine-grained lumber from Oregon for home construction – led Vanport to change its emphasis from log exporting to manufacturing lumber for Japanese home construction.

Customer demand in Japan rapidly grew, outpacing increases in the capacity of Vanport’s sawmill. In order to supply its growing Japanese customer base, Vanport established marketing arrangements to sell lumber from other producers in the U.S. Pacific Northwest and British Columbia in exchange for its knowledge in manufacturing and quality control. Also key to this arrangement was the hiring of bilingual staff (English and Japanese) familiar with Japanese customs that could be trained in the lumber business. In this way, Vanport’s sales to Japan continued to grow and, when the sales from the other producers exceeded that from its own facilities, Vanport split the sales arm off into a new company in 1994, called Vanport International, Inc., which exists today as the main revenue generator in the Vanport Group.

Since the formation of Vanport International, personnel have been added from or moved to other countries. And Vanport’s recent foray into China has resulted in diversification into a new major line of business of wood product imports into the U.S. and a new customer base. In summary, the expansion of personnel across the globe has led to:

• offices established in Russia
• an office established in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
• sales staff in Japan
• procurement staff in Germany
• an office in China

Please visit our product pages to learn more about what Vanport and what it supplies in the wood products industry.