About
Sequoia Paper was started as Northwest Paper and Evergreen Distribution over ten years ago and now represents over twenty-five mills with products ranging from uncoated and coated papers, paperboards and other specialty and industrial substrates. The founder, Dave Petrino, is a former Westvaco mill rep and Unisource sales rep, who is based in Camas, Washington just north of Portland, Oregon.
So, how does a company like Sequoia Paper help our customers? Here’s how we do it…
An Alternative
Sequoia Paper offers an alternative to the Veritiv + Spicers oligopoly. Each print market used to be served by four to six paper merchants back in the early 1990s. Now there are two (Spicers and Veritiv) along with a small group of converters and specialists. There is room for a highly focused third paper vendor to give our printers access to an additional credit facilities and alternative mill and grade choices.
Tailored Solutions
We tailor all our solutions to individual printers and end-users. This means that we don’t put up a warehouse and stock it with general inventory. We put together programs specific to each customer’s needs; this includes the mill, grade, basis, finish and sheet or web size and we stock what the customer wants us to stock. The price points and way we transact with them is dictated by the customer. Sometimes we send paper directly from the mill to the customer at fair margins to minimize the prices if they have room and working capital. Sometimes we put local inventory in a third-party warehouse and deliver as needed closer to the local market price. The logistics and prices are determined by our customer’s needs.
Different Choices
We offer different paper choices. We are different from our competitors as we not trying to protect our warehouse inventory investment. We offer sourcing for grades and mills that aren’t offered by the local merchants and typically aren’t sold direct from the mill. We concentrate on mills that have unique products or need access to the Western US market because their North American sales offices are either understaffed or unfamiliar with our local market dynamics.
Speed
Speed. Everything we do is fast because we’re small and nimble. We’re not serving the broad market. We solicit business from a small number of customers and focus on “fit”. That means we have the time to help you every time you call.