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Not a shared inbox staffed by somebody else, and never an answering service. One business day, in writing.
Portland, OR · email only, no phone
Founder
Started the company with a borrowed flatbed and four breweries. Still writes quotes, still argues with customers about over-specifying, still answers email at six in the morning.
Proudest of
The decision to publish a racked load rating nobody had asked for.
Least proud of
Buying a grinder four years before we had the volume to feed it.
Yard manager
Owns the four-hour triage standard, the grading lines, the repair bay queue and the winter storage plan. If a load arrives badly, it is her phone that does not ring, because we do not have phones.
Proudest of
Cutting average triage time from two days to four hours.
Least proud of
The February we filled the covered storage with the wrong grade.
Lead grader
Grades, trains graders, and writes the specification revisions. Can hear a cracked stringer through a work glove and has never been talked into letting a marginal unit through.
Proudest of
A rejection rate low enough that customers stopped measuring.
Least proud of
Learning the sounding reflex took a month and he still cannot explain it.
Logistics coordinator
Plans every route against an inbound collection, which is why our load factor runs around 82%. Also the person who will tell you that self-haul is cheaper for you than our truck.
Proudest of
Pairing loads until the fleet stopped running empty.
Least proud of
The first Gorge closure she planned around badly.
Fabrication shop lead
Builds crates, skids, collars and everything upcycled. Prototypes, load-tests, films the drop test, and rebuilds the corner that failed. Keeps the Nagoya photograph pinned above the bench.
Proudest of
A 1962 printing press that arrived without a scratch.
Least proud of
The crate joint that failed its first drop test, loudly, in front of a customer.
Sustainability & reporting
Runs the weighed reconciliation behind the zero-landfill rule, writes the diversion certificates, and maintains the carbon methodology — including the caveats that make our own numbers look worse.
Proudest of
A method a customer's auditor accepted without a single follow-up question.
Least proud of
Having to delete a carbon claim we could not defend.
How we work
Hiring? We nearly always are. Five open roles — or write to hello@palletlinker.com.
Grade definitions, dimensional tolerances and racked load ratings in writing. Most yards will not publish a racked figure at all.
Two graders per line, flipped and sounded. Every inbound load is triaged within four working hours so nothing rots in a mystery pile.
Weighed in, weighed out, reconciled monthly. Zero pounds landfilled in 2025, with a certificate you can hand to an auditor.
No phone line by choice. Every price, date and commitment lives in an email you can search, forward and hold us to.
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.
Every unit carries a Pallet Passport ID burned into a stringer. Type it in and read its species, cycles, repairs and carbon ledger.
Lifecycle
A composite built from real Passport records. Individual units vary enormously; the shape does not.
Douglas fir from a mill inside 180 miles. Seven top boards, five bottom, three stringers, helical nails, 2,800 lb dynamic.
Beverage route work. Loaded, racked, unloaded, returned. Colour starts to grey; nothing structural changes.
A lead board splits at a nail line. Twenty-minute fix: replacement deck board, re-square, re-stamp. Graded B from here.
Nursery and agricultural work, where deck gaps matter more than appearance. Spends two winters partly outdoors.
A stringer cracks. A second timber is fitted alongside, spanning the crack. Measurably stiffer than before.
Local one-way freight. Tare weight has drifted up a pound from accumulated moisture cycling.
Two bottom boards gone, deck softening. Economic repair ends here. Chalk line through the whole pallet.
De-nailed board by board. Clear boards to the fabrication shop; structural stock back to the repair bay as donor material.
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.
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
Safety
OSHA 1910.176 covers storage and housekeeping in your building. These are the specifics that actually cause incidents.
If nobody can produce a racked (edge-support) figure in writing, treat the pallet as unrated and floor stack it. This is the single most common serious incident in warehousing.
Keep empty pallet stacks to a sensible, stable height — commonly capped around 15 units or 6 feet by site policy — on level ground, away from exits and sprinkler heads.
Idle wooden pallets burn fast and hot. Most fire codes limit indoor idle storage and require separation from other combustibles. Outdoor storage needs clearance from buildings.
Obvious, routinely ignored, and the cause of most pallet-related injuries. Use equipment, not a foothold.
Gloves, and reject units with nails standing proud. A nail that tears a case will also tear a hand.
Never burn MB-fumigated, painted or chemically treated wood. Untreated offcuts are fine as fuel; everything else goes to a proper stream.
This is general guidance rather than a compliance document. Your local fire code and your own risk assessment govern; we are happy to supply load ratings and treatment records to support yours.
Next step
One form, one business day, and a reply from somebody whose name is on this page.
