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By Joy Stohr

Close to 30 years ago, the Christmas Tree growers in the Northwest had a very good reason to be concerned – the possibility of a flooded tree market was very real.

In the hills near Salem, OR, Crown Zellerbach Company had been quietly growing noble fir Christmas Trees on over 1,000 acres. Up to this time, the industry was primarily made up of family businesses and small landowners growing trees on dozens of small tree farms.

Crown Zellerbach was the first large corporation to enter the Northwest Christmas Tree market. However, as a result of early mass plantings, Crown had an enormous amount of trees that were going to become marketable all at once.

Crown had hired Paul Goodmonson, a recently retired partner of Holiday Tree Farms in Corvallis, Oregon as a consultant. Due to the fact that Crown had not developed a market for the trees, they were advised to sell the entire farm. At that time, their farm consisted of 1,117 acres with over one million noble firs coming to market over the next two-year period.

When my husband, Bob Stohr, and I got the call about the pending sale, we were definitely interested. However, we knew that our company, Douglas Fir Christmas Trees, and we could not handle such a large purchase alone. But Bob didn’t give up and he decided to put together a group of potential buyers. He turned to three skilled Christmas Tree men to join him in the purchase.

His first agenda was to convince Paul Goodmonson that he was too young to retire and still very much needed in the industry. Paul had previously served as the President of the Pacific Northwest Christmas Tree Association, as had Bob. Paul later served as the President of the National Christmas Tree Association. Bob also served as a trustee for the National from the Pacific Northwest.

Second, Bob asked Gary Bishop from Ken Del Ranch in Northern California to join the group. Bob had dealt with Gary and his father, Ken Bishop, for some time in Los Angeles. Ken Del had wholesaled large numbers of trees in the LA area for many years.

Third, Bob invited Fred Peste, at that time his partner in Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Company in Shelton, Washington, to participate in the venture. Many Northwest growers will remember Fred as a pioneer in the industry and subsequently a recipient of the Herb Plum Award.

NEGOTIATIONS HELD “BETWEEN THE BOXES”
Negotiations with Crown Zellerbach began. It was an exciting time for all of us. Bob and I had just purchased on old house on American Lake, just out of Tacoma Washington. It was in need of much work.

Even in the midst of all the remodeling, it seemed as if our meetings with our potential partners and Crown representatives always ended up at our house. We were pretty much living out of boxes at the time. Consequently, on the day of the signing, the Crown executives and the four new owners toasted champagne to each other in plastic slurpy cups! We joked about that for many years.

So, it was four families, all experienced tree people that became the new owners. A fifth partner, LA investor, came in later. The year was 1976 when Crown Zellerbach’s farm became the new Noble Mountain Tree Farm.

Bob had great concern about the large number of trees coming to market from the Crown farm and their potential impact on the industry. Fortunately, Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Company was selling much more than it was producing and that was helpful in moving many of the newly available noble fir trees.

Bob was determined that the trees were to be spread over a wide geographic area to avoid flooding the traditional Northwest markets. Together, Bob and Gary Bishop spent a great deal of time searching and charting new avenues of sales across the United States.

They targeted the East Coast. This proved to be a real challenge because, while Northwesterners believed noble to be our most desirable species, it was unheard of back east. It took real salesmanship, but Noble Mountain became the first Northwest company to develop a market for this species in such far away markets.

Incidentally, they were successful enough in their sales efforts that the western markets were not “flooded” with noble fir trees.

Four main employees who were previously at Crown Zellerbach have remained to become a very important part of the Noble Mountain Tree Farm staff today:

Jeanette Spurgeon, assistant manager and personnel manager, has just celebrated her 30th year of employment. Gary Elder, general farm foreman, Greg Johnson, shop foreman, and Bob Schaefer also have continued to become key members of the organization. Bob was selected to become the general manager. We are grateful to have retained these original staff members for so many years.

Paul Goodmonson, the only Oregon in the group, agreed to be become the first managing partner, a position he held until 1984 when he retired. Bob Stohr then became the managing partner.

A TRAGIC LOSS
In 1996 my husband, Bob, was killed in a car accident. He lost control of his car trying to avoid hitting a dog that jumped out in front of him.

Due to Bob’s death, many changes have taken place. Rather than becoming sole manager of Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Company and responsible as the managing partner/owner of Noble Mountain, I chose to offer the Washington farms for sale to Noble Mountain Tree Farm.

The central nucleus of Douglas Fir’s farms is now a part of Noble Mountain’s holdings. The outlying farms are being sold to other growers. As we finish out the Washington farms, we plan to continue our growth in Oregon to be able to service those accounts of Douglas Fir and Noble Mountain Tree Farms.

This past year, Noble Mountain was fortunate to be able to purchase the tree production of Tilton Valley Tree Farms, located near Morton, WA. This tree purchase will enable us to provide a consistent supply of noble fir trees for our customers for several years – particularly during the current squeeze on the supply of nobles.

As many of you may remember, Borden Nanny was one of the owners of Tilton Valley. He ably served as president of both the Northwest and the National Christmas Tree Associations.
Today, the Stohr Family Trust is the managing partner of Noble Mountain Tree Farm. The trust consists of myself, owner and general partner, Elvin Vandeberg, family attorney, and Carl Hogan, lifetime friend and businessperson as trustees.

New on the staff of Noble Mountain Tree Farm are several key employees of Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Company. These include Craig French, Washington forest manager, Thomas Ellenberger, chemical spray specialist, and Tom Taylor, salesperson.

As Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Company sells the remainder of its tree farms, its emphasis will turn to timber management and some land development in Washington state. For the majority of its fields and key staff to become part of Noble Mountain was a natural fit.

The combined Douglas Fir Christmas Tree Christmas Company and Noble Mountain Tree Farms are Bob Stohr’s legacy to an industry he loved so much. The land base has grown from its original 1,117 acres from Crown Zellerbach, to 5,500 acres under the “new” Noble Mountain umbrella.