Owner: Ed Mays
Inventive Portland craftsman transforms environmentally sustainable wood into gracious home and office interiors
EnduraWood Owner Ed Mays
Portland, OR— If you have ever looked at a naked, clear-cut mountainside and wondered if it had to be that way, you’ll be glad to know that plenty of better options exist.
Over the course of 38 years, Ed Mays has studied forest management and conservation.Today, his firm — ENDURAWOOD — serves as a model for sustainable wood management. His product line runs from wood countertops to tables, desks, cabinets, flooring, wall panels and laminated beams. “About everything we do qualifies for LEED points,” he notes.
LEED is the acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.“When we use freshly cut and milled lumber we try to source it primarily from FSC certified forests,” he says. FSC stands for Forest Stewardship Council, an international program aimed at forest management practices that preserve diverse forest ecosystems through a very selective harvesting program.
“We also have used lumber milled from reclaimed logs from old log rafts,” he says. Better than that, buildings slated for destruction provide a wide variety of lumber.
Mays takes delight in displaying a section of a fir board that once served as seating in the bleachers at a high school stadium. He flips the board over for inspection. Half has been sanded and upgraded to furniture quality wood. The other half, a half inch higher, still holds a dozen pieces of desiccated chewing gum deposited decades ago by bright-toothed students.
If a guy can take a rough, coarse bleacher bench and convert it into handsome furniture, what can he not do?
A future for recycling“I’ve grown over the years from referrals and repeat business,” Mays says.Beautiful EnduraWood counter top becomes eatery centerpiece.
Among his clients, Mays cites a number of high visibility companies. He ticks off a list of jobs such as: Replacing doors at the Heathman Hotel in Portland. Installing a curving wooden wall for Providence Hospital in Hood River.
Custom work for McMenamin’s in Portland.Installing 400 feet of panels for Les Schwab headquarters in Bend.Displays for Thirst Wine Bar & Bistro in Portland made entirely from reclaimed wine vats.With show places for his work in so many settings, Mays hardly needs billboards to promote ENDURAWOOD.
Looking forward to the next step, Mays wants to develop ENDURAWOOD as a brand name. That, he hastens to add, does not mean adopting a one-size-fits-all mentality. Even so, he expects some clients will buy furniture off the showroom floor. However, he sees the assorted displays mainly for clients to use as starting points for designing their own one-of-a-kind patterns.
The newly remodeled ENDURAWOOD showroom features “The Ultimate Kitchen Display,” showcasing products and services from 15 companies working together to market themselves as a group. To view the many options, go to http://www.facebook.com/PortlandsUltimateKitchen. The group hosts events, including educational seminars, the third Thursday of each month.
To prepare for his expanding services, Mays called on Terry Brandt, executive director of Albina Opportunities Corporation (AOC). AOC specializes in business loans to small businesses with good track records. As part of its services, AOC has a volunteer panel of business-savvy people who will provide consultation, giving clients every chance of success.
Located at 1303 SE 6th Avenue in Portland’s Eastside Design District, visitors are welcome to drop by and browse ENDURAWOOD’s many unique sustainable wood products.Inviting almost any challenge, Mays says, “Tell us your vision and we’ll conjure up the solution.”Creative visual interest added to an otherwise static table edge. at (503) 227-3950.
A life devoted to the environment:
“I’ve always been involved in environmental issues,” Mays says.
As a student at Oregon State University, Mays served as a research assistant. There he learned that clear cutting, followed by replanting with only one tree variety, proved the least satisfactory form of forest management. Either limited cutting with an assortment of trees or no cutting led to healthier forests.
After four years at Corvallis, Mays spent his next ten years working at a research lab in New Zealand. While there, he helped erect a passive solar home — one that relies primarily on the sun rather than fossil fuels. Environmentalism takes many forms.
Ever the global minded citizen, Mays signed up for a tour with the Peace Corps as a volunteer in India. An intuitive teacher, Mays encouraged his students to become involved in hands-on projects.
Returning to Oregon, Mays launched his woodcraft company in Bend in 1994, selling both FSC certified and reclaimed lumber and flooring. In 1997 he moved operations to Portland. By 2000 he had raised his vision to include counter tops, paneling, flooring and furniture.
Taking into account Oregon’s rapidly expanding wine industry, a wood aficionado could hardly overlook reclaiming the wood from the growing number of over-age wine barrels and tanks made from oak grown primarily in France.
As a future project, Mays envisions furniture made from these barrels, especially those with red stains deep below the surface. (Is anyone looking for a wine cellar with wall panels made from wine tanks often topped with Pinot Noir?)
Of the many special effects, Mays is attracted to the “high low design” tiles manufactured for Ann Sacks, a local designer. This effect comes from tiles of differing thicknesses attached to a flat base. It works equally well for wall panels or furniture faces. These designer wall tiles are all made from FSC certified sustainably sourced hardwoods.