A truck and a rented half-acre
Hollis Reyes started collecting pallets from four Portland breweries in a borrowed flatbed, grading them on gravel in Northwest Industrial. Revenue in month one: $1,840.
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Portland, OR · email only, no phone
Started by accident, continued on purpose
In 2009 Hollis Reyes was delivering kegs for a Portland brewery and noticed that every single stop had the same problem: a pile of pallets behind the building and a dumpster invoice to make it disappear. The pile was inventory being treated as rubbish.
The first month involved a borrowed flatbed, four breweries and a rented half-acre of gravel in Northwest Industrial. We graded on the ground, in the rain, with a tape measure and a steel square. Two of those four original customers still buy from us.
The decision that made us a real company
For the first two years we competed on price, which worked in the sense that we survived and failed in the sense that it taught customers to see us as the cheap option. Climbing out took three years and one decision: publishing a grade standard we could be held to.
Then, after a customer had a near-miss in a beam rack with somebody else's pallets, we published a racked load rating. Nobody asked us to. It forced us to grade properly, and grading properly turned out to be the product. Every serious customer we have won since came from that decision.
What has not changed
One rule: no organic material that enters this yard leaves it in a dumpster. It is written as a rule rather than a target because targets slip quietly and rules get enforced by whoever is standing at the scale at seven in the morning.
Everything else about the company has changed at least twice. Read the full timeline, or the honest list of what we got wrong.
The yard, in brief
- 3821 NW St Helens Rd, Portland, OR 97210
- Four acres, rail on one side, river on the other
- Repair bay, kiln, de-nailer, grinder, fabrication shop
- Four-hour inbound triage standard
- No phone line. Everything in writing.
- 2009founded in Portland
- 17years on the same rule
- 4acres on St Helens Road
- 0telephones, deliberately
Seventeen years, abridged
A few turning points
2009 2014 We published a grade standard
Written definitions for A, B, core and reman, with tolerances. Revenue dipped for a quarter. Then it did not.
2018 Email only
We shut off the phone line. Every quote and commitment became written and searchable. The single best operational decision we have made.
2021 Zero landfill, measured
First full year with weighed reconciliation on every inbound and outbound stream. Zero landfill tonnage, and we have held it since.
2022 The Pallet Passport
A winery asked where the wood had been. We could not answer, so we started stamping an ID into every unit that crosses the scale.
2026 Seventeen years, same rule
No organic material leaves this yard in a dumpster. Everything else about the company has changed at least twice.
“Undercutting everybody kept the lights on and taught customers to see us as cheap. Publishing a standard we could be held to was the first grown-up thing we ever did.”
Inside
Four pages behind the gate
- 01
Timeline
Sixteen entries from a rented half-acre to 4.1 million pounds diverted.
Read more - 02
Inside the yard
The scale, the grading lines, the kiln, the grinder and the shop.
Read more - 03
Our standards
Grade definitions, tolerances, load ratings and our rejection remedy.
Read more - 04
Work with us
Five open roles in the yard, the bay, the shop and the cab.
Read more
- 01
Published specifications
Grade definitions, dimensional tolerances and racked load ratings in writing. Most yards will not publish a racked figure at all.
- 02
Hand graded, four-hour triage
Two graders per line, flipped and sounded. Every inbound load is triaged within four working hours so nothing rots in a mystery pile.
- 03
Zero landfill, measured
Weighed in, weighed out, reconciled monthly. Zero pounds landfilled in 2025, with a certificate you can hand to an auditor.
- 04
Everything in writing
No phone line by choice. Every price, date and commitment lives in an email you can search, forward and hold us to.
- 05
Repair before replacement
A repair bay, a kiln, a de-nailer and a grinder on site. Repairing a pallet avoids roughly 11 kg CO₂e and costs you half of new.
- 06
Traceable by stamp
Every unit carries a Pallet Passport ID burned into a stringer. Type it in and read its species, cycles, repairs and carbon ledger.
- 14kpallets graded monthlytwo hand-grading lines
- 1,100heat treated per dayISPM-15, chart recorded
- 4.1M lbwood diverted last year68% reused whole
- 0 lblandfilled in 2025weighed and reconciled
Process
How a first conversation actually happens
No sales team, no discovery call, no CRM sequence. We have no telephone, so everything below happens in writing and stays searchable afterwards.
- What we need: footprint, grade, count, ZIP, and how the pallet is handled.
- Nice to have: a photo, your dock height, whether you run forklifts or jacks.
- Not needed: a purchase order, an account, or a phone conversation.
- 01
You send the form
Every form on this site is the same form and reaches the same yard team. Required fields are validated as you type, so a mistyped ZIP or email is caught before anything is sent.
- 02
We check today's stock
Used pallet availability moves daily. You get a real count and a real date rather than a list price that was true last quarter.
- 03
A written quote, within one business day
Price per unit by grade, freight itemised separately, delivery window, and any honest reservations we have about the specification you asked for.
- 04
Delivery, count, paperwork
Signed count sheet on arrival, weight ticket where relevant, and a diversion certificate for anything we collect for recycling.
Questions
What people ask about working with us
What is the minimum order or pickup?
No hard minimum for collection at the yard — come and take four pallets on a Saturday morning if you like. For delivery it is 50 units inside Portland metro and 150 outside it, because the truck has to earn its diesel. Outside our 180-mile fleet radius we quote through partner yards and freight, with the lane itemised.
How fast can this happen?
Standard 48×40 Grade A and B stock: same day for pickup, next day for metro delivery. Block pallets one to three days. Custom builds five to nine business days; engineered runs two to three weeks. Heat treatment is same day for booked batches and 48 hours standard. Written quotes always come back within one business day.
Why is there no phone number anywhere?
Because verbal quotes get remembered differently by different people. Since 2018 every price, date and commitment we make exists in an email you can search and forward. Most customers dislike it for about a month and then prefer it. Everything else happens in person at 3821 NW St Helens Rd, Portland, OR 97210.
Can I inspect before committing?
Please do. Visit the yard by email arrangement — closed-toe boots required, hi-vis provided — or ask for photographs of the actual pool your order would come from. We would rather lose an order than have a customer discover a surprise on their dock.
What documentation comes with it?
A written quote, a signed count sheet by grade, a weight ticket where material is weighed, heat-treatment certificates for treated batches (archived seven years), and a monthly diversion certificate for anything we collect for recycling — measured pounds kept out of landfill, which is the figure your ESG report actually needs.
What will you refuse to do?
Take methyl-bromide fumigated, chemically contaminated or fire-damaged wood. Buy marked rental-pool pallets, which belong to their operator. Promise same-day delivery outside the metro. Or quote a grade we do not think will survive your handling — we will specify downward and explain why.
Long reads
From the journal · written in the yard
- Jul 21, 2026 · 7 min
Fifteen years on St Helens Road: what we got wrong
A short, honest list of the decisions that cost us money, and the three that saved the company.…
- Dec 10, 2024 · 7 min
Why we gave every pallet a name: the thinking behind the Pallet Passport
We stamp an ID into every unit that crosses our scale. It started as a traceability request and changed how our own crew…
- Nov 12, 2024 · 6 min
Why our zero-landfill promise is written as a rule, not a target
Targets slip quietly. Rules get enforced by whoever is standing at the scale at 7 a.m. on a Tuesday.…
- Mar 17, 2026 · 7 min
The brewery pallet playbook: kegs, cases and a very wet floor
Portland has more breweries per capita than almost anywhere. They have taught us a specific set of lessons about wood an…
Everything else on this site
- The size library Twenty footprints, both measurement systems, tolerances and stock depth
- Grades explained A, B, C and reman written out, including what each costs us
- Load capacity Static, dynamic and racked without hand-waving
- Published standards The whole quality system, and our rejection remedy
- Pallet Passport Type in a stamped ID and read that pallet's life
- Carbon math Line-by-line derivation with the leakage caveat
- Journal 33 long articles from the grading line
- Glossary 36 terms, yard definitions
- All locations 51 states and DC, 323 city pages
- Contact us 3821 NW St Helens Rd, Portland, OR 97210 — email only, no phone
Lifecycle
Eleven years in the life of one pallet
A composite built from real Passport records. Individual units vary enormously; the shape does not.
Year 0 Built
Douglas fir from a mill inside 180 miles. Seven top boards, five bottom, three stringers, helical nails, 2,800 lb dynamic.
Year 0–2 Trips 1–4
Beverage route work. Loaded, racked, unloaded, returned. Colour starts to grey; nothing structural changes.
Year 3 First inspection failure
A lead board splits at a nail line. Twenty-minute fix: replacement deck board, re-square, re-stamp. Graded B from here.
Year 3–6 Trips 5–9
Nursery and agricultural work, where deck gaps matter more than appearance. Spends two winters partly outdoors.
Year 7 Companion stringer
A stringer cracks. A second timber is fitted alongside, spanning the crack. Measurably stiffer than before.
Year 7–10 Trips 10–13
Local one-way freight. Tare weight has drifted up a pound from accumulated moisture cycling.
Year 11 Retired from carrying
Two bottom boards gone, deck softening. Economic repair ends here. Chalk line through the whole pallet.
Year 11 Dismantled
De-nailed board by board. Clear boards to the fabrication shop; structural stock back to the repair bay as donor material.
Year 11 Recovered
What is left goes through a magnet and a grinder: mulch, bedding shavings, biomass fuel. The nails go to a scrap partner four miles away.
Year 11+ Still working
The best boards are now shelving in a bottle shop, carrying its Passport ID burned into the end grain.
Thirteen trips, two repairs, roughly 143 kg CO₂e avoided against building thirteen new pallets, and nothing landfilled at the end. Look up a real record
Reference
Standards, bodies and who decides what
Pallets sit under a surprising number of overlapping rules. Here is who writes them and what they actually govern.
| Reference | Who maintains it | What it governs | Does it bind a used pallet sale? |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISPM-15 | IPPC, under the UN FAO | Treatment and marking of solid wood packaging in international trade | Yes, for export |
| GMA footprint (48×40) | Industry convention, originally grocery manufacturers | A footprint, not a quality level | No — it is a size |
| EPAL / EUR | European Pallet Association | Euro pallet construction, repair and branding | Yes, if sold as EPAL |
| ISO 6780 | International Organization for Standardization | Principal pallet footprints worldwide | No |
| ASTM D1185 / D1083 | ASTM International | Test methods for pallet performance | No, but ratings reference them |
| PDS (Pallet Design System) | Virginia Tech / NWPCA | Engineering-grade load modelling | No — a design tool |
| NWPCA uniform standards | National Wooden Pallet & Container Association | Common grade vocabulary | Voluntary |
| OSHA 1910.176 | US Dept of Labor | Safe storage, stacking and housekeeping | Yes, in your building |
| Oregon EPR (SB 582) | Oregon DEQ | Producer responsibility for packaging; wood is in scope for reporting | Increasingly, yes |
| FSMA / food safety plans | US FDA | Packaging as a food-contact hazard consideration | Via your audit, yes |
The gap in that list is the interesting part: no authority grades used pallets. That is why a written supplier specification — ours is published here — is the entire quality system in this industry.
Timing
The pallet year in the Pacific Northwest
Supply and price both move with the seasons. Knowing the shape of the year is worth more than negotiating hard in October.
| Month | What the region is doing | Pool depth | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | Everything quiet; recycling inflow steady | Deep | Best buying window of the year. We stockpile now |
| February | Repair bay catching up | Deep | Lock quarterly pricing; book spring nursery stock |
| March | Nursery season begins | Tightening on 36×36 | Spring stock should already be reserved |
| April | Nursery peak; landscaping starts | Tight on nursery decks | Mulch and bedding demand rises sharply |
| May | Nursery winding down | Normalising | Good month for custom builds and crate projects |
| June | Berry harvest | Normal | Watch for short-notice agricultural requests |
| July | Berries, early stone fruit | Normal | Forecast your October number now |
| August | Pre-harvest build-up | Normalising down | Harvest slots allocated this month |
| September | Hazelnut and grape harvest begins | Tight | Reserved stock only. Spot buyers struggle |
| October | Peak harvest; cider apples | Tightest of the year | Do not start here. Everyone calls at once |
| November | Harvest ends; rain begins | Recovering | Grading gets stricter; covered storage fills |
| December | Retail peak, agriculture stops | Deep again | Mulch demand collapses, biomass rises |
Next step
Come and look at it before you buy
Nothing we claim on this website is true anywhere except at 3821 NW St Helens Rd. Email us and visit — bring closed-toe boots, we provide the hi-vis.