Page 7 - GormanBros_70th Newsletter_Final_Web

GORMAN GROUP EDGE / ISSUE #1 7

Working out of a shed on family property, they purchased trim ends and waste lumber and started hammering
the components into fruit boxes. Their father was the first employee, and Eunice Gorman, Ross’s wife, was
responsible for bookkeeping. By 1951, they had built a chop saw and a circular gang saw to cut their own
lumber. A single-surface planer was the third investment. In 1958, the company had grown enough to move
down the lane and expand to the land by Highway 97, where Gorman Bros. Lumber is located today. Ross and
John would work 6 days a week from sunrise until dinner at the mill, then spend their evenings working in
their recovered orchards. Sundays were always set aside for church and family. Esther Scott, Ross Gorman’s
oldest daughter, remembers that as a child, “most Saturdays, Uncle Johnny (John) would be filing saws, and
dad (Ross) would be around the mill doing any maintenance necessary, so by Monday, everything was running
smoothly and ready for the week.”

Gord Milsom, Mayor - City of West Kelowna

On behalf of City of West Kelowna Council and staff, thank you to the Gorman Group and your
amazing staff for your commitment to our community and congratulations on an incredible 70
years of operations. West Kelowna is proud to have you as a historic business and as a huge part
of the heart of our City. You and your hardworking and generous staff represent everything that
is great about our hometown – a belief in building strong, caring relationships, innovation and
adaptability and a commitment to manufacturing the highest quality products, reflecting the
core values and carrying on the great legacy of company founders – John, Edith, Ross and Eunice.
We wish you continued success for the next 70 years and beyond.

Ross and Eunice’s kitchen table was again the location where significant decisions were made, when for days,
blueprints of a new design for fruit bins were developed. Fruit bins began to replace fruit box production and
by the early 1960s, their specially designed fruit bin was so popular that orders were coming from throughout
BC and Washington State. The American government had started charging duty on bins coming from Canada
to the US, so the brothers decided to move unassembled parts from Westbank to Oroville, Washington, and
assemble the bins that were destined for US markets there. This was the beginning of the Oroville Reman and
Reload division of the Gorman Group.