Center of the Nation Wool markets, buys wool from producers – Prairie Star
BILLINGS, Mont. – Scott Lammers markets and buys wool from sheep producers in a 12-state region. He’ll then turn around and look to sell it to some major merchants in the US.
His take? Pennies. But, pennies add up.
Actually, the wool loot Scott garners is for the Center of the Nation Wool, Inc. based in Billings, Mont. And it’s a tough business sometimes. Because there’s a market, with ping pong-like swings. Some buyer-seller bartering, at times contentious, going on. Back-and forth bickering. The hard-working Montana or Wyoming sheep grower may not like the offer. And he’ll let you know it, finding personal space to invade, if necessary.
“For about 10 years those guys were coming in and getting fifteen cents a pound,” said Scott, noting he was on those front lines taking the hit like the postal clerk when stamps go up. For many it wasn’t even worth while consigning during those times.
But wool topped about $3 a pound this year. Does that mean all the shepherds are warm and fuzzy?
Hardly, says the manager of the Billings office operating out of a 20,000 square-foot tan-colored warehouse at 119 South 25th St. All-times wool price highs help, but Scott says some growers, really a small few, are cantankerous no matter. But he has a sympathetic side with the European heritagers. They work hard and expect the same in return.
“My family is from Germany, they grew crops, but I don’t think they raised sheep,” said Scott, with remnant Almain light hair and blue eyes. It was my grandfather’s family who came from Germany and settled in South Dakota. They came over from South Dakota in 1911 around the time my grandfather was born and homesteaded east of Judith Gap. That’s when we started raising sheep and cattle.”
Scott’s family through the decades raised livestock and grew grains. The moniker is Careless Creek Ranch, a big family operation well known in the state’s central region.
The patriarch, born in 1911, Arthur Lammers, was still setting fence post till age 90. A decade later he has centuried and with his wife Rose, 96, they now reside in a retirement home in Harlowton. Scott, about a third their age, can’t diminished their blood and sweat. He saw it first-hand on the family acreage that butts up against those massive wind turbines near Judith Gap.
“I have one foot on this side as a wool buyer and another foot with the family rancher,” said Scott, physically demonstrating the two step. He studied ag engineering at Montana State University. After a few jobs, including some tough manual labor on the family ranch and at Midland Bull Test (feed test) near Park City, he met up with Larry Prager at a Montana Woolgrowers Association convention. Prager helped start Center of the Nation Wool more than 30 years ago along with a handful of other sheep ranchers who make up the company’s board of directors. He offered the 24-year-old a chance to manage the Billings wool marketing operation more or less on the spot, after a few beverages at the old downtown Sheraton Hotel. Past midnight was the interview, as Scott recalls.
Fourteen years later, Scott is still playing middle man for the northern plains shepherds and nation’s wool merchants that include world renown French company Chargeurs that has a wool mill in Charleston, S.C. Other wool buyers Scott connects with includes Anodyne from San Angelo, Tex., the Lempriere company also from Charleston and Burlington Industries from N.C. There’s others, says Scott, but those are the big four who get the goods from the company’s core wool-producing states of Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. Most sheep guys work on consignment with Scott. Others producers will put their wool out for public bid. If the price is right, the buyer is Scott.
He says the main objective of the company though is to market wool for sheep producers. They receive a small percentage for each pound sold to the four major buyers. Center of the Nation Wool also receives revenue from wool sacks they sell to producers.
“We receive pennies for each pound of wool,” said Scott. “But we do a large volume of wool, in the millions of pounds. It adds up.
“There is a market, a public auction in Australia, that sets the standard for world trade. That gives us a basis to use when we are selling on behalf of our ranches. They set the standard that we generally follow.”
Center of the Nation Wool has its corporate office Belle Fourche, S.D, near Rapid City. Folks in the town pride themselves on being geographically at nation’s center, hence the company name. In addition, it has a facility there that takes in twice the amount of wool from area producers than Billings The company had a facility in Casper, Wyo that closed about six years ago.
They operate efficiently with skeleton crews. There’s only six employees in Belle Fourche. Scott and warehouseman Ray Ochoa manned the Billings plant that does the give and take with about 500 sheep producers in the region.
Most sheep trimming in the region begins in March. The shearing season lasts about three months. About 400-pound square bales are producer transported by trailer to the Billings facility. A core test sample of the producer’s wool is taken and sent to the Angus-McColl Testing Laboratory in Denver to determine the quality of the wool, necessary for international sales. Within a week micro and yield results are returned.
Once stamped good and merchants are located, the wool is transported from the Billings warehouse by semi trucks to South Carolina or Texas. Some wool is purchased and sent to foreign countries.
Scott says there are about eight to ten wool marketers similar to Center of the Nation Wool in the US, including Salt Lake City, Utah and Santa Fe, New Mex in the west.
Presently, the Billings warehouse is near empty. Scott says that’s a good sign because practically all incoming wool to Billings has buyers, thus the inventories have stayed low during the year. At the moment, wool folks want it and prices are high.
“There is just a world wide demand for wool at this time,” said Scott. He notes the major wool producing countries, such as Australia and New Zealand decreased sheep production in recent years. The American dollar value has deterred foreign sheep imports into the US. And clothing fashion has recently moved away from synthetic to natural fibers.
Wool is in. Pennies are up.
Posted in Apparel
