Proximity to U.S. Midwest boon to local businesses: Fort Frances-based manufacturer makes inroads into American market. (Fort Frances & Rainy River).

While the current Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade dispute, has forest industry executives and trade officials up in arms, NorFab Building Components Ltd. believes it has just scratched the surface of its market potential south of the border.

The Fort Frances-based manufacturer of building components and wooden prefabricated buildings has almost tripled its workforce in the last four years to meet with the super-heated American housing market demand for roof trusses, gazebos and garden sheds.

"We haven't come close, to tapping our potential," says Brian Hagarty, NorFab's general manager. "We're growing probably as fast as we can grow right now. Now it's a question of manpower availability and how fast we can manage the growth we have. The market potential has always been greater than our capacity to expand."

Operating out of a 35,000-square-foot production facility, NorFab employs 135 people, a dramatic rise from only 50 workers four years ago.

Rather than go head to head with major American competitors in offering up the same products, NorFab has tapped into a specific niche market of value-added wood products.

Hagarty believes there is a silver lining to the trade dispute that can ultimately play in the Canadian forest industry's favour if they are willing to adjust their product lines and grasp an opportunity.

"Prefabricated wooden products have always gone across the border duty free under NAFTA and those prefab products, keep jobs at home," says Hagarty. "Why sell them a two-by-four when we can sell them a wall or a shed instead? That's our market, so that's what we preach."

NorFab sells directly to large big box wholesalers across North America, shipping about 80 per cent of their total production to the U.S. Midwest and as far east as New York.

However, this was not always the case. Despite being situated directly opposite International Falls, Minn., it was not until about five years' ago that the 16-year-old company considered export out of sheer necessity. They started off in the truss business when there was a Canada-wide construction boom in the 1980s. But as business tapered off in the early 1990s, and domestic markets shrunk, they began looking elsewhere.

"We realized we're as close to Duluth as Thunder Bay," says Hagarty. "It just made sense to export with all of those towns between here and there right in our backyard."

With a heavy emphasis on research and development, NorFab's in-house engineering team works on improving existing designs and crafting new products every year.

"The U.S. labour market is really tight and if customers can buy prefabricated products it alleviates a lot of pressure," says Hagarty. "Our future looks very bright; we anticipate being busier and creating more jobs next year and expanding our production facilities."

Geoff Gillon, the economic development officer for the Rainy River Future Development Corp., wishes he had more success stories like NorFab to talk about.

As a member of the Northwest-Midwest Alliance, a business development group promoting regional business ventures in the United States., he is puzzled why many forest companies with top-notch product lines are reluctant to export and grow their businesses.

"We're finding the biggest obstacle in northwestern Ontario is having a lot of high-quality products, but losing in the marketing of that product," Gillon says.

Gillon, along with local entrepreneurs who wish to showcase their wares, often attend American industry trade shows, but it is sometimes a hard sell to convince others to take the leap in tripling or quadrupling their business.

Gillon attributes that to a limited entrepreneurial drive, cultural reservations in dealing with Americans and perceived hassles about shipping over the border; challenges his agency is trying hard to surmount.

Among some of the more forward-thinking exporting firms he cites are: Manitou Forest Products, a First Nations company in Rainy River that exporters pallets and log siding made from OSB panel and Normiska Corp., which sells peat, bark, and composted bark product primarily to a U.S. market.