TREE OWNERS NEWS
Summer 2003
Sherry and I would like to begin this newsletter
with a heartfelt thank you to every one of you who are having us grow
trees for you. Only through your faith in us and your enthusiasm and
support are we able to do all that you will read about in this Tree Owners
News. Thank you very much!
Thank you also for sharing Tropical American Tree
Farms™ with your family, friends and neighbors. We want to continue to
plant additional trees, produce more hardwoods, provide more employment,
and protect more habitat, and your sharing this with others helps make
that all happen.
Together, we are producing hundreds of thousands of
board feet of beautiful and precious tropical hardwoods that aren't being
taken from the world’s natural rainforests, directly protecting thousands
of acres of rainforest on the farms, and making a wonderful impact on
hundreds of families and many communities here in Costa Rica.
Thank you very much!
We are very happy to report that everything, both at
Tropical American Tree Farms and at Raleo™, is progressing wonderfully.
- We are having a beautiful rainy season and all of
our trees are growing vigorously. Our crews continue to lovingly groom
the trees on all of our farms, while other teams are conducting the
thinnings as Leonardo directs. Still others are milling the logs from
the thinnings into hundreds of thousands of board feet of beautiful
lumber and moving the lumber to our drying facilities at Campo Real and
Matapalo.
- With the wonderful support of a number of you who
bought trees earlier this year, we were able to add the farm contiguous
to our Sierpe farm and Beto is now preparing the planting.
- Raleo has begun its production and sales of
beautiful furniture and art, and from those sales, purchasing tropical
hardwoods from our early thinnings. And from those proceeds, Tropical
American Tree Farms has begun making distributions.
- Raleo now has three beautiful collections of
furniture and many works of art, and will soon be adding more of both.
- We just had the incredible honor of Raleo’s
Art/Surfaces winning a coveted international design award.
- As a result, we will shortly formally introduce
Raleo's line of exquisite Surfaces, and Art/Surfaces, all crafted from beautiful tropical
hardwoods from our early thinnings.
- We are now working to build an active team of
Raleo representatives to accelerate Raleo’s growth across the U.S. and
Canada.
- To help build our team, we have contracted with a
national sales-marketing-public relations firm that specializes in
developing representative teams and marketing upscale furnishings,
fixtures and accents throughout North America.
- Raleo’s beautiful furnishings crafted from our
tropical hardwoods, together with its active marketing, are, by design, establishing Tropical American Tree Farms as a high-end, high
quality source of uniquely beautiful cultured tropical hardwoods in ways
that no amount of Tropical American Tree Farms advertising could
achieve. Raleo now represents a huge potential benefit for everyone for
whom Tropical American Tree Farms is growing trees.
Sherry and I are thrilled with the growth of all of
our trees, the beauty and quantity of the hardwoods we are producing, and
the growing synergy between Raleo and Tropical American Tree Farms.
Thank you very much for making all of this possible!
Raleo™ had the incredible honor
of being chosen for a prestigious international design award - Best of
NeoCon 2003. Above are Raleo's Twist coffee table, Vária cocktail
table, Pi bench, and Spiral II, Pacific Sunset and Realm art as part of
Raleo's NeoCon 2003 display.
With your kind support, we were able to complete the
acquisition of the neighboring farm at Sierpe, providing land perfect to
plant an additional 50,000 tropical hardwood trees and allowing us to
protect several hundred additional acres of magnificent rainforest there.
Beto has begun the preparations for planting and
defining the regeneration corridors to reconnect the rainforest areas on
that farm with our main Sierpe forest.
We are planning a new photo gallery of the
rainforests you are helping to protect and will include the magnificent
new forests at Sierpe. We will let you know as soon as we have the photo
gallery finished.
Steve in the Sierpe rainforest with one of
the
countless majestic trees we are protecting there
Those of you who have read our newsletters since
September 11, 2001 know that Sherry and I made a commitment that day that
we would plant one tree in memory of each innocent life taken or valiantly
given in that tragic attack - fruiting, flowering and shelter trees that
will never be harvested.
Beto contracted with a local rural women’s
association to produce the seedlings, and in the latter part of last
year’s planting season, planted 3,000 trees of more than a dozen species
of fruiting, flowering and shelter trees in a 25 acre memorial garden that
we set aside here on Campo Real.
We will leave the garden area relatively natural so
that the birds and animals can enjoy the trees’ shelter, flowers and
fruits. But we will also keep trails or paths open so that you may walk or
ride among the trees as they grow.
Those 3,000 trees will stand in living tribute to
the men, women and children who perished that day, and serve as a constant
reminder that freedom and life must always be cherished.
Sherry and I view our two main responsibilities to
you, our tree owners, to be 1) to carefully plant, groom and manage your
trees to produce the greatest quantity of the highest quality tropical
hardwoods for you as is reasonably possible, and 2), for those of you
whose wish or instruction it is that we sell your hardwoods for you, to
identify and develop the best present and future markets to obtain the
highest reasonable price for your hardwoods.
Our first responsibility, the proper planting,
pruning, thinning and care of your trees, we have now been doing for more
than ten years. All of our systems and procedures are in place and
functioning beautifully. Beto, our overall farms manager, Leonardo, our
lead forester, all of our individual farm managers, their foremen, our
sawmill teams, drying crews, and even our individual workers in the field,
all know their work very well. They understand our high standards and
incorporate them continually in their work of taking excellent care of
your trees, without any need for input from us other than our occasional
review and approval.
The comfort of knowing that all of your and our
trees are being well taken care of has allowed us to now focus nearly
exclusively on identifying and developing the best markets for all of the
hardwoods that will be coming from our farms, both the young wood from the
early thinnings and the adult hardwoods that will soon be coming from
subsequent thinnings and harvests, and how best to obtain the highest
prices for them.
Those of you who have been with us for a while know
that we started Raleo , our sister company to Tropical American Tree
Farms, to create a better market and value for the youngest hardwoods
from our earliest thinnings by designing, making and marketing products
made from the young hardwoods.
As you will read below, we have expanded Raleo’s
role, and importance to Tropical American Tree Farms, much beyond that
original objective, to become an incredibly effective means of creating a
market awareness of Tropical American Tree Farms and all of our tropical
hardwoods.
Both independently and with a professional market
research firm, we very carefully evaluated the wood and wood products
markets and concluded that the very best way to achieve our goals would be
to direct Raleo to the upscale furnishings market, first in North
America, and then elsewhere in the world.
A Raleo craftsman lovingly
hand-
polishing one of our Pi tables
In the upscale furnishings market, our exquisite
Raleo products will serve as wonderful examples of, and create a higher
perceived value for, all of our beautiful Tropical American Tree Farms
tropical hardwoods.
And, in the upscale market we can afford to give
much more attention to quality and detail, and the resulting, more
exquisite Raleo products will even better showcase our Tropical American
Tree Farms tropical hardwoods.
Also, in thinking about Raleo’s continued success,
in the upscale market we will be competing on design, beauty and quality,
rather than competing on price against products from high-volume,
low-labor-cost manufacturers in other countries.
We have determined our desired Raleo product mix,
channels of distribution and market position, designed and refined
products, concluded testing innumerable finishes, abrasives and adhesives,
perfected our drying, cutting, shaping, assembly, veneering, and finishing
techniques, vetted our finished designs, and finalized our first three
collections of beautiful upscale Raleo accent tables, Pi, Vária and
Twist, and are developing a growing collection of exquisite Raleo art,
all created from the beautiful hardwoods from our earliest thinnings.
We think you will be proud as you read how far Raleo
has come.
To assure Raleo’s continued success and minimize
the impact of future attempts to copy our products, we will seek to
protect our Raleo products and designs by copyrights and design patents.
But much more important, we are working to establish
Raleo as a brand of upscale furnishings that discerning consumers,
designers, architects and others will recognize and associate with beauty,
uniqueness, warmth, style, and very high quality.
Establishing our Raleo brand and recognition is now
a fundamental element of everything that Raleo does. It is central to our
choice and design of our Raleo furnishings, the positioning and pricing
of our products, the design and content of our marketing materials (we
will soon be creating a new brochure), the selection of galleries and
design showrooms to market our Raleo products, the choice of design and
trade shows to exhibit our Raleo furnishings, and in which upscale
publications to encourage articles about Raleo.
A unique element of Raleo’s message is that the
beautiful tropical hardwoods in all of our Raleo products were carefully
planted and grown for harvest by Tropical American Tree Farms, allowing
Raleo to choose the exact species and age of the hardwoods that we use in
our products and to assure buyers that the hardwoods in our Raleo
furnishings are all sustainably grown.
Our market research team determined through surveys
of design professionals that our unique message, “from seedling to
finished product”, attracts interest and sets Raleo clearly apart,
communicating an unexcelled knowledge of tropical hardwoods, the raw
materials for our Raleo products, and conveying a sense of unique quality
and style.
At the same time, that very same message, carried
directly to discerning buyers, specifiers, and manufacturers throughout
the upscale market, clearly identifies Tropical American Tree Farms as a
unique source of exquisitely beautiful cultured tropical hardwoods and
imparts to Tropical American Tree Farms the same sense of knowledge,
uniqueness and high quality.
It is a very compelling message that we believe will
help firmly establish both Raleo and Tropical American Tree Farms as
recognized sources of beauty and high quality.
As we develop our Raleo brand, expand our
collections of exquisite Raleo furnishings, and get them into top
galleries and showrooms in upscale markets everywhere, Raleo will have an
increasingly positive impact on Tropical American Tree Farms.
We know of no other source of tropical hardwoods in
the world pursuing the market in this manner and can think of no better
way to bring Tropical American Tree Farms to the attention of top
designers, architects, manufacturers and hardwood buyers throughout North
America and beyond and become known as a top quality source of unique and
beautiful cultured tropical hardwoods.
That is our vision for Raleo, and as you will see
in reading further in this newsletter, exactly what we are actively
pursuing.
It will clearly take much more work, time, and
capital to achieve, but the rewards will be substantial.
Our estimate is that from the 1.6 million trees that
we are now growing, Tropical American Tree Farms will produce between 120
and 150 million board feet of tropical hardwoods over the next 25 years.
Even a small increase in the price per board foot that we are able to
obtain for our Tropical American Tree Farms hardwoods as a result of
Raleo’s top quality products and marketing will be a significant benefit
to everyone for whom we are growing trees.
In the last nine months, we have exhibited Raleo’s
exquisite furniture and art at the five largest and best known juried
design shows in North America - Chicago Design Show in November, Chicago
One of a Kind Show in December, Architectural Digest Show in New York City
in March, ICFF or International Contemporary Furnishings Fair in New York
City in May, and NeoCon in Chicago in June.
At every single show, our Raleo furnishings have
been wonderfully received. Attendees, other exhibitors, and even other
manufacturers have told us that our Raleo products are “stunning,”
“incredible,” “breathtaking,” and, from quite a few, “the most beautiful
at the show” - an incredibly gratifying response considering that many of
the finest designers and furnishings manufacturers in the world were also
exhibiting at these same shows.
We also received at the shows several inquiries from
manufacturers about buying wood, and other inquiries from designers,
design showrooms, and even some other smaller manufacturers about the
possibility of our manufacturing furniture for them.
On the first day at NeoCon, two people from Crate
and Barrel’s corporate office came to our booth. They told us that there
had just been a corporate strategy meeting at Crate and Barrel’s
headquarters focusing on the importance of using sustainably grown
hardwoods in the furniture they are offering, and that the day after their
strategy meeting, they read a full-page article about Raleo in Furniture
Style magazine, saying, in part, that we make our beautiful furnishings
from tropical hardwoods that we have grown on our tree farms.
They came to our Raleo display at NeoCon
specifically to discuss the possibility of Raleo manufacturing furniture
for their stores out of the hardwoods we are growing, or in the
alternative, selling them the lumber to manufacture the furniture. They
also invited us to their upscale store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago to
review the furniture they are currently offering.
It is much too early to know which of these
inquiries will develop further, but it is very clear that the time and
money that we are investing to exhibit our Raleo products at these top
design shows is an incredibly valuable means to get Raleo known as a
source of exquisitely beautiful furnishings, and Tropical American Tree
Farms known as a high-quality source of unique and beautiful cultured
tropical hardwoods.
Best of NeoCon Award
The kind comments and warm praise
that Raleo furnishings have received at each of the design shows was
brought into clear focus at NeoCon.
NeoCon is the largest commercial
interior design exposition and conference in North America, with more than
50,000 attendees and 1,200 designers and manufacturers from all over the
world exhibiting their best and most beautiful furnishings, artwork and
other products in more than 1 million square feet of displays on five
floors of Chicago’s huge Merchandise Mart.
Every year at NeoCon, a panel of
distinguished design professionals selects the very best products and
designs for their annual Best of NeoCon Award, perhaps the most
prestigious design award in the trade.
This year, thirty-two design
professionals from all over the U.S. and Canada served as the Best of
NeoCon judges - principals of top architectural and design firms,
furnishings manufacturers, and design publishers.
The judges personally reviewed
the products and interviewed exhibitors in our booths before the show. As
soon as the judges arrived at our booth, Sherry and I could see that they
liked our Raleo furnishings as they stood back, looked and smiled, and
then moved forward and looked more closely. Several ran their hands over
our furniture and art, and smiled even more.
They carefully reviewed
everything and asked us many very good questions. Then, as quickly as they
had appeared, they wished us a good show and moved on.
It was very good to see their
positive reactions, but considering that this was Raleo’s first time at
NeoCon and that our display was 220 square feet out of 1 million square
feet total of displays, including those of most of the very top names in
furnishings, Sherry and I didn’t hold our breath. We obviously knew of all
of the compliments from design professionals that we had received at every
show before, but we also felt it likely that the awards would go to the
well-known names with the incredibly fine and elaborate displays.
We were stunned when we received
a call the following afternoon from the Best of NeoCon committee. The man
who called said that the judges had completed their evaluations and chosen
the winners and asked if we could attend the awards breakfast the
following morning to receive an award. He added that he was not permitted
to tell us what award we had won, nor for which of our products. I almost
couldn’t get the words out to reply that yes, we would be honored.
Bright and early the following
morning Sherry and I walked into the ballroom of the Omni Hotel where
hundreds of design professionals from all over the world were patiently
waiting to learn who would be receiving this year’s Best of NeoCon Awards.
The ceremony began with an
introduction of the distinguished panel of judges and an explanation of
how carefully they had conducted the judging. Then, the master of
ceremonies began to announce, one by one, the winning products, the
designer, and who would be accepting the award.
Suddenly we heard “The Silver
Best of NeoCon 2003 Award in the category of Architectural Products and
Finishes goes to Raleo Art/Surfaces, designer Jake Brunner, and here to
receive the award are Steve and Sherry Brunner of Raleo, congratulations
to Raleo.” As we walked up to the podium to receive this incredible honor
surrounded by the applause of the huge room full of assembled design
professionals, up on a very large screen was a bright projected image of
one our of Raleo Art/Surface designs.
Sherry and I were truly humbled,
and thrilled.
After the breakfast, several of
the judges came up to us and told us personally how much they liked all of
our Raleo products and designs.
And in the following days during
the show, many, many people came to our booth and congratulated us. Quite
a few said, “do you realize what you have won” or “do you know what an
honor this is.” What a wonderful confirmation that we truly are on the
right track!
The incredible honor of the Best
of NeoCon Award is a true tribute to all of you who have had the faith in
us to have us grow hardwoods for you, to the men and women at Tropical
American Tree Farms and Raleo who have worked so diligently in caring
for our trees, preparing the lumber, and crafting our beautiful Raleo
furnishings, and to Jake, one of my two wonderful sons, who is our
Director of Design at Raleo
and has designed most of our Raleo
furnishings.
Much more good news in
part two
next page -
Summer 2003 Tree Owners News - part two
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