History of Rice Lumber

Rice Lumber was founded in 1930 by Dennison Rice. In 1954, Wesley Carroll started working at Rice Lumber. After 16 years of hard work, Wesley and two partners, Fred Dispirito and Deek Booker, bought the business from Dennison Rice in 1970. In 1982, Fred Dispirito unfortunately passed away, and in 1985 Wesley bought out his remaining partner and became the sole owner.

All three of Wesley's sons, Jim, Jay, and David took an active role in working at Rice Lumber. In 1993, the children, including their sister, Shelly (a non-working partner) purchased the business from their father to carry on the family business.

Rice Lumber was featured in the Business Monday of the Burlington Free Press in 1989.

Rice Lumber was featured in the Business Monday of the Burlington Free Press in 1989.
Jim is the oldest, and therefore the president, Jay is Vice-President, and David the treasurer. Each one shares the responsibilities and is in charge of a distinct part of the business. Jim's main function is purchasing and dealing with bankers, lawyers, receivables, and payables. He gets all the information and then reviews it with the partners.

Jay is the dispatcher, his father's position when he ran the business. This is the key position in serving the customers with a high degree of quality and service. Jay's experience in building construction in his past jobs prepared him for the task of coordinating and scheduling materials and deliveries when and where they are needed to maintain maximum efficiencies for the contractors and builders.

David is the sales manager is in charge of pricing the jobs and preparing quotes. David mainly deals with the outside sales people, sets pricing, and building new business relationships. He works in tandem with the head estimator and TJ-Beam Expert, in providing the contractor and builder materials and costs on what they need to get the job done.

Rice Lumber is family owned and operated, it is the type of business that cares about its employees, customers, and neighbors. When you do business with Rice Lumber, you become part of the family. We are focused on providing outstanding service at a fair price. It's in our blood, and we couldn't do business any other way than honestly and fairly.