Dear Valued Clients, Vendors and Partners,

As you know, this Coronavirus epidemic is a once-in-a-lifetime event that we hopefully never have to face again. The last few weeks having been very trying as we navigate uncharted waters with a constantly changing battle against the spread of this disease.

On Sunday, March 22nd, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a mandated “Stay at Home” order. This order closes all non-essential businesses from Tuesday March 24th through Monday April 6th, when the situation will be re-assessed by the state.

On Friday, March 20th, The Department of Homeland Security and CISA issued new guidelines classifying what they deem to be “essential” businesses. Under the Food & Agriculture section of these guidelines “Workers who support the manufacture and distribution of forest products, including, but not limited to timber, paper, and other wood products” are classified as essential. This means that M. Bohlke Veneer Corp.’s operations are considered to be essential.

Although we are happy our industry has received this classification, our executive team has decided that for the safety and health of our employees, their families and our community it is best to close the majority of our operations for this initial two-week period.

At the end of this two-week period we will re-assess the situation internally and decide if it is safe to re-open some of our operations and production. This will be on a “choice” basis for employees who are willing to work under these circumstances. If we do re-open it will be done with strict health and safety guidelines to protect our team.

MBVC will have a team working remotely to assist with answering sales requests, shipping documents and correspondence. We will have a small crew in our warehouse pulling orders, loading trucks and loading containers during the next week. As of now, our North Carolina Warehouse will continue to work as long at the state considers it safe to operate. We will also continue to buy timber/logs in all states and receive logs at our Fairfield facility.

In the meantime, some of our business functions may be delayed, including accounts payable, invoicing and other accounting correspondence. We appreciate your patience in this matter.If you have any urgent or pressing matters, please call our offices at +1 (513) 874-4400 and someone will answer your questions as soon as available. You can email your urgent requests to email@mbveneer.com and our team will follow up with you.

We are confident we can weather this storm and we hope to be back to our normal operations soon continuing to serve our clients with the highest quality wood products. Until then, please be safe. We will get through this and come out even stronger.

Manfred and Nick Bohlke