Submitted photoArt Pozzi, who owned Bend Millworks, died March 26 at age 84.

One of the giants of Central Oregon’s lumber industry, Arthur “Art” Pozzi, died March 26.

He was 84.

Born on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Pozzi was a lumber broker in the Portland area when he first came to Central Oregon in 1968 to buy Lee Millworks.

Pozzi renamed the company Bend Millwork Systems, and in 1978 Pozzi added a window manufacturing division, Pozzi Windows, which became one of the larger window companies on the West Coast.

By the time Pozzi sold Bend Millwork Systems to Nortek Inc., in 1986 for $27 million, it employed more than 1,400 people in Bend and was the largest employer in the region.

The sale to Nortek became contentious, with Pozzi and the new owners ending up in court. By 1992, Nortek sold Bend Millwork on to Jeld-Wen, which continued to sell windows and doors under the Pozzi name for several years.

Pozzi launched Oregon Woodworking Co. in 1993, and employed as many as 130 building door and window components before the Bend plant closed for good in 2007.

Frank Cammack first met Pozzi selling him lumber while working for Brooks-Scanlon in the early 1970s. In 1974, after about 12 years with the company, Cammack and three co-workers headed out on their own to start an independent lumber wholesaler, Deschutes Pine Sales. Pozzi was one of the first potential customers to call.

“When we first formed our company, he was gracious enough to call us up and invite us down to the Elks Club and have a beer with us and give us some do’s and don’ts,” he said.

Bill Smith, developer of the Old Mill District and a former executive with Brooks Resources, said Pozzi was a gambler who was willing to bet on the future of the wood products industry when others were wavering.

“He was buying lumber when nobody else was,” Smith said. “And he’d just warehouse it and say the price will come up.”

Bruce Daucsavage, president of Ochoco Lumber Co., said Pozzi was one of the first customers he knew that realized there was money to be made by minimizing waste.

The manufacturing techniques Pozzi pioneered were ahead of their time, he said.

“He was able to design systems that cut lumber in a very efficient way, that no one seems to have thought of before,” Daucsavage said.

Daucsavage said Pozzi had some odd habits, sometimes dropping in on salesmen at Ochoco Lumber and peppering them with questions without even bothering to say hello.

He said Pozzi was one of the most knowledgeable and innovative customers he ever had and was always willing to share his expertise.

“He always seemed to have a lot of time for people, and that’s hard to find in the industry,” he said.

Jill Flores, Pozzi’s stepdaughter, said his hardworking but generous ways were ingrained in him at an early age, the result of his father’s death when he was 7.

“Arthur became the caretaker of his family very early on, and he used to tell tales about scrubbing vegetables at the grocery store for some extra money, delivering papers, taking suitcases at the docks, all of these odd jobs,” Flores said.

On the last day of the 11th grade, Pozzi pulled a stunt that may have altered the trajectory of his life, Flores said. Standing up on a table, Pozzi led his fellow students in a chant targeting one of their teachers. He was expelled, and at the urging of his older sisters he enrolled in business school, she said, starting him on the path to his future career.

Jean Pozzi, Art Pozzi’s wife of 29 years, said that although her husband was widely known as a hard worker, he’d been an avid tennis player in the 1970s and a serious golfer in retirement.

“He couldn’t carry a tune, but he loved to sing the Broadway songs, and he loved telling stories,” she said. Jean Pozzi said her husband embraced her three children from a prior marriage as full members of their family — he, too, had two children from an earlier marriage — and took a lot of pleasure in helping people around him, giving guidance to colleagues starting their own businesses and cash assistance to employees looking to buy a first home.

“He was probably the most humble, kindest, most thoughtful man I ever met in my life,” she said. “He helped so many people.”

Cammack, the lumber wholesaler, said he always admired Pozzi’s ability to anticipate where the lumber industry was headed and his courage to chase after it.

“We always thought, God, how could a guy have enough guts to do that? And he’d just step right up and do it, and I think for the most part, he always came out on top,” he said.

Survivors include his wife, Jean Pozzi; children Randall Pozzi and Valerie Pozzi; stepchildren Jill Flores, Steve Coats and Lisa Coats-Taylor; four grandchildren; four step-grandchildren; and two step great-grandchildren.

Arrangements are being handled by Deschutes Memorial Chapel & Gardens.

The Pozzi family will be holding a funeral Mass at 1 p.m. today at Nativity Lutheran Church in Bend. A graveside service is at 11 a.m. Sunday at Pilot Butte Cemetery.

— Reporter: 541-383-0387,

shammers@bendbulletin.com