Quentin Moss, President, G.F. Hardwoods and Moss Sawmills
G.F. Hardwoods and Moss Sawmills are located right in the heart of the Appalachian hardwood region. The company has been a manufacturer of hardwood lumber for the past 40+ years, and I’ve spent almost 25 years working here.
After I started work on Jan. 27, 1994, I was a lumber stacker for approximately a year before I started inspecting lumber, which I did for 17 years. Another couple of years were spent in management and sales, and in 2017 I was named President of G.F. Hardwoods and Moss Sawmills.
Early in my career, I helped manage a small sawmill owned by Bill Vinson, who was a lumber inspector for many years. That’s what got me into the lumber business. I’ve been married to his daughter, Melita, who is the most positive influence in my life and my best friend, for the past 23 years. Our son, Brayden, is carrying on the family tradition by studying forestry and wildlife science at Tennessee Tech University.
When I started here, all of the lumber processed either at MSM or G.F. was stacked and/or sorted by hand. With the addition of the tray sorter at G.F., it allowed us to be more productive and efficient with far fewer employees. Our late founder, Doug Smith, saw how much more productive and efficient the sorter made G.F., so he installed sorters at all the Sawmills.
Our company is known for producing a good consistent quality product that works well for companies that manufacture hardwood flooring, cabinets, trim and molding, dowels, curtain rods and broom/mop handles.
We offer all major Appalachian species such as Red Oak, White Oak, Poplar, Ash, Hickory, Hard and Soft Maple and Cherry – to name a few. We have 900,000′ of kiln capacity and our kilns are control by Lignomat Computerized Drying System.
As most everyone in the industry Moss Sawmills has become much more automated since the mid-1990s with the addition of scanners and sorters throughout the mill, and the same goes for G.F Hardwoods.
In our future endeavors I look for us to become even more automated to allow us to continue to be competitive with our log prices at MSM as well as our lumber prices at G.F. as the demand for hardwood lumber grows.
I am thankful that I’ve have been able to be a part of the Smith family businesses for half a century, and I will forever be grateful for the opportunities that Mr. Doug Smith and his family continue to give me. I always have and I always will count that as a blessing.