PROFITABLE FINISH - KNOCK ON WOOD

Glossy $3.5 million a year for three partners who built a veneer biz.

By James Carlson

Veneer is any material that is applied to something else as an overlay. It’s usually associated with wood. For centuries these thin wood coverings have been glued to a baser, substrate wood, such as plywood, to enhance the surface beauty that is displayed. It gives the appearance of the whole thing being made of the more valuable wood. To this day simple kitchen cabinets are made with this process. The need for veneer to be used in diversified ways offers entrepreneurs a range of business opportunities. Wood veneer is used on everything from guitars to caskets. When you see a highly polished, fine piece of woodwork, chances are it is veneer.

The rich wood veneers that abound in many boardrooms, corporate headquarters, law offices and entrance lobbies in the Northeast come from a successful business that started only five years ago. Veneer One, Inc. manufactures the raw veneer that is sold to architectural woodworkers, store fixture manufacturers, cabinetmakers and the like. The product is the surface wood veneer; be it maple, mahogany, cherry, marquetry or whatever the client chooses, Veneer One creates it.

They acquire the raw wood surfacing easily from veneer vendors that are in the business of selecting different types of trees to be sliced into thin sheets, or leaves, of veneer. It is usually job specific, chosen by a customer. Otherwise Veneer One chooses a cut of wood that meets their own criteria.

Victor Giaime is proud of the craftsmanship that goes into the fine veneer work he creates for customers.

Following the customer’s specifications, the wood is cut to the appropriate dimensions. Since the wood has a grain, pieces must be stitched together to construct a seamless veneer face, no matter how large the panels may be.

The next step is to glue the veneer to a thicker substrate such as fiberboard, plywood or particleboard, via a through-feed press that permanently bonds the two woods together. The resulting panels are checked out by a quality control supervisor.

The final step is for the wood to be sanded, packed and shipped to the customer. The staining, tinting and glossing is done by the woodworker who bought the panels.

What Veneer One sells to interior designers and architects are panels that are used in very prestigious projects. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of veneer work has been sold to the trades that put together interiors for high-profile companies.

Nickelodeon’s office space, the President of NBC’s executive offices, Black Entertainment’s corporate space and even the interior for the reality TV series, The Restaurant, was created by Veneer One. (It was used in an American Express commercial too.) One of their biggest projects was the AOL Time Warner building in Columbus Circle in New York City. On every level of the mall there are cherry wood wall panels in the restaurants, shops and bars.

One of the three partners in Veneer One, Victor Giaime, is especially proud of the work he did for the Mercedes-Benz showroom on Park Avenue in Manhattan because it is located in a building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Giaime, educated in Architectural Technologies from The New York Institute of Technology, paid his dues out in the field swinging a hammer as a young carpenter. He eventually went to work for a multimillion-dollar lumber company and, in 14 years, worked his way up from salesman to Vice President of Sales and, finally, Sales Manager. Wood veneer was one of the products that he sold for them. It gave him the know-how to go into business for himself.

“When I hit my financial ceiling at that company I decided to go out on my own and manufacture wood veneer products. My present partner, Steve Horan, had the factory space plus thirty years experience and our other partner, Arnold Lanzilotta, had 20 years in the woodworking field. Lanzilotta is principle owner and CEO of Jonathan Arnold Woodworking. He trusted our intentions and backed us. I had the vendor contacts. Sweat equity, I called it. The three of us had our defined roles. We signed on the dotted line and our three-people formula worked.”

It took $80,000 to start Veneer One. They had to lease machinery, buy raw materials and pay workers. Veneer One got off to a rocky start in the summer of 2000. September 11th shook the world and like many fledgling companies it was difficult for them to stay afloat.

“We lost a lot of money the first few years. Our biggest challenge was to get past that. Now, five years later we are in the black,” Mr. Giaime said. “Much of the leased equipment is paid off. Most leases in our industry use unique, one-of-a-kind machines that, after five years, offer an option to own it. We recently bought a through-feed, automatic press line from Italy. It’s a $300,000 machine. Presently we have a million-plus dollars worth of equipment up and running. There are 27 employees and our workweek is 60 hours. Most of the employees are well trained to do one skilled task so we can keep wages within reason. It allows us to produce a finished product at a profit. This year Veneer One expects to gross more than $3.5 million.

The 25,000 square feet of factory space holds machinery as well as over a million dollars worth of raw wood materials.

Veneer One has their own local delivery trucks as well as using common carriers to ship out the completed work.
Veneer One Inc. is located in Oceanside, New York. They specialize in custom-made wood veneer panels and doors to the trade. They can be reached toll-free at 886-4VENEER.

(back to top)