Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Potlatch Headquarters To Move

Potlatch Corporation announced its board of directors has approved a plan to relocate the company's corporate headquarters from San Francisco to Spokane, Washington. It is anticipated that the move will be completed during the third quarter of 1997 and will affect approximately 40 employees who work in the company's San Francisco and Walnut Creek corporate offices. Relocatiolon costs were not disclosed.

Most of the company's operations are in rurual areas of Arkansas, Idaho and Minnesota. "Promoting employees from these regions of the country to the bay area has been difficult because of the cost of living differential," said John M. Richards, chairman and chief executive officer.

Richards also said the move will lower the company's administrative costs. "Potlatch is focusing on becoming a low-cost producer," said Richards. "This move is part of that effort."

Sales and marketing organizations for Potlatch's private-label tissue, paperboard and market pulp will still be located in Walnut Creek. Sales representatives for Potlatch's printing paper division will also remain in the company's Walnut Creek offices.

"This move should have no effect on our large customer base in California," said Richards. "But it will help us to reduce our costs and give our shareholders higher returns in the future."

Potlatch Corporation was founded in northern Idaho in 1903. The company moved its corporate headquarters to San Francisco in the 1960s when the company was expanding its operations into California and other parts of the United States, as well as South America and Asia.

Today Potlatch has concentrated its operations near its 1.5 million acres of timberlands in Arkansas, Idaho and Minnesota. The company also operates a tissue-converting facility in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Potlatch is a diversified forest products company. Its 6,700 employees manufacture lumber and panel products, coated printing papers, bleached paperboard, private-label consumer tissue products and market pulp.