Wellborn Cabinet president Paul Wellborn talks with Sara Gutterman about how the privately held, family-owned Alabama manufacturer avoids waste — running its own sawmill, maximizing lumber yields, and burning sawdust to fire the boilers that heat its ovens and dry kilns. He also describes sourcing American plywood and paints, delivering coast to coast on company trucks, and the multi-generational Clay County families who staff the plant.
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Sara Gutterman: I'm here today with Paul Wellborn, president of Wellborn Cabinet. While born is a privately held, family owned company. Talk about your mission and values and what are you most proud of with respect to Wellborn? History and evolution over the years?
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Paul Wellborn: I put family and people ahead of certain things, but they all need a clean environment and I was raised not to waste materials. If you're building a house, you had to be sure that you utilize materials and and save. And that's that's what we in this company, we do every day. Getting good yields out of lumber. We take the sawdust and burn it for our boiler system, which heats our ovens, and not only the ovens, but to dry kills.
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Paul Wellborn: So we try to prevent waste. I've always been taught not to waste materials, and I believe in it. We. I don't like to see resources done away with. We're in the business of the wood business, so I don't want to see all the trees cut down and and mismanaged. I'd like to see managed private. And we and I don't do business with somebody that would would go in and abuse the forest and the streams.
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Sara Gutterman: Wellborn is known for product quality and being made in the USA. Can you elaborate on these attributes and other elements that make Wellborn stand out in your category?
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Paul Wellborn: Started working. Actually made cabinets for my father and the houses. He will build it. And so as time went on, we're done. A lot of hood military work, he claims like that. But quality and product was always our mission. We people would try to get back to you to cut back on your price and lower your quality. That's not our goal.
00:01:48:23 - 00:02:08:23
Paul Wellborn: We believe in good quality. We got good people. They do a great job. We got a very diverse product, but I'm so proud of it. What these people do every day. You just just can't beat the people here in Alabama, in Clay County, that sacrifice a lot of their hours of their week and doing what needs to be done.
00:02:08:24 - 00:02:35:09
Paul Wellborn: As having our own sawmill, buying the logs from local loggers, and the fact that we saw our own lumber and two on dry killing, we can provide a better quality cabinet because of that. But the fact that you create more jobs in the community, we buy American plywood, we buy American paints. We don't bring in products from overseas unless it's it might be some screws.
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Paul Wellborn: It's not made to us. But we try to be American made and we deliver it all the way to the customer on our trucks. It's coast to coast. We deliver. So when you get to product, you have to have somebody in between handing the product because you can have a lot of damage in kitchen cabinets. So I'm proud of it being American made.
00:02:55:07 - 00:03:15:18
Paul Wellborn: We believe in doing what's right on the environment and the people in our communities. We believe in doing that. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Say, I believe that and that works. We have so many people here in this company that have worked here all their lives, in a lot of cases, right out of high school.
00:03:15:18 - 00:03:42:13
Paul Wellborn: And they'll they'll actually retire at 45. One of them 4 to 6 years the other day. So we have families, children, grandchildren and parents. It's a same time. We're not only a family business, we are building of a lot of families because they're here. They're dedicated and and in some, some families, we might have had 20 or 30 different family members to work here at the same time.
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Paul Wellborn: And that's what makes this place special. So I enjoy coming in and going to work and working with these people. It's it's I enjoy it as much as being at home with my own family, because we've got so many good people in this company.