3-10-2023 4:26am

TIMBER CEO ON LIFE

In the room: Woman business leader sees confidence as game-changer

By George P. Matysek Jr., Catholic Review

COCKEYSVILLE – When Annette Walter walked into national business conferences soon after becoming the owner of Maryland-based Timber Industries a decade ago, she was often one of the only women in the room.

“In the beginning, it was really hard because a lot of people were like, ‘Who is this girl who bought Timber Industries?’ ” remembered Walter, a 46-year-old parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Timonium.

“If you approach it from a standpoint where everyone is out to get you, you might beam that,” she said, “but if you approach it like, ‘I’m here. I’m going to do good things. I want to make great things happen,’ then I think that can really help you.”

To say Walter has made great things happen is an understatement.

Soon after entering the banking industry out of college, Walter started a full-service residential real estate firm called the Strata Group. She had seven male partners and, at just 30, was the youngest among them, serving as the company’s chief operating officer.

When she sold the company in 2012, it had grown to 17 locations and was generating $20 million in revenue. That’s when she jumped at the chance to purchase Timber Industries, a national supplier of wood pallets, skids, crates and other materials. She researched the company, which had been owned by another family, for a year before buying it.

Today, Cockeysville-based Timber Industries is a multi-million-dollar company that relies on a network of 1,800 mills across the country for manufacturing pallets and other products for Fortune 500 companies. Walter estimates that about five or six truckloads each filled with 660 pallets go out every day.

Timber Industries is the only pallet supply company in the United States that is 100 percent owned by a woman, Walter said.

“I think if women really believe FINISH READING HERE