The pallet whisperers
To some, they’re just nondescript piles of wood, but to city entrepreneurs they mean jobs, money
WOONSOCKET — Who says manufacturing is dead?
At Lost Brothers Pallet Corporation, it gives off the pungent scent of fresh-cut oak strapping and echoes off the walls with the sharp slap of men stacking the rough-hewn cargo platforms into columns, one atop the other.
Launched just three years ago by Robert Monteiro Jr., the company was originally dedicated to repairing and reselling used pallets. Founded with a barebones staff in a rented space, Lost Brothers now operates out of the cavernous River Street building that once housed Grossman’s Lumber and has expanded into fabricating new pallets with a staff of 15 full-time workers.
But the city native and former New York commodities trader says he’s not done exploiting the potential of the used pallet yet – or creating jobs.
He’s getting ready to launch a line of furniture and household accessories with wood made from used pallets.
“I have a wood shop in here and who knows how many more employees I’ll be able to hire for that,” says Monteiro. “Woonsocket needs jobs. I feel like there’s an opportunity here to make some money and also give something back.”
The city apparently likes the way Monteiro thinks.
Federal Grants Administrator Christopher Carcifero says Monteiro’s application has been approved for up to $40,000 to build a showroom and make other improvements to support the furniture business. The money comes from the city’s roughly $1.2 million Community Development Block Grant program, an annual allotment which has long included funds to promote small business development.
Carcifero said Lost Brothers’ success as a job creator was among the factors taken into account in evaluating Monteiro’s application for a grant. Carcifero also toured the business and was keenly impressed by the quality of his handiwork with furniture design.
“Tell him to show you his bar,” says Carcifero. “It’s very nice. I was like, ‘Wow, this is coming out of a pallet company?’ If he can get this off the ground he can open up a lot of doors for himself.”
The city is due to open bids for work on the project on Thursday.
Monteiro has a good feeling about his prospects for selling furniture and other items made from used pallet wood for the home. Homeowners savor the weathered, distressed look of recycled wood for tables, chairs and other items, both decorative and functional.
“People just love that look of something that’s been in circulation for a while – it’s got the color, it’s got the grain,” he says. “The sky’s the limit. I see things every day that make me say, ‘I could make that out of pallets.’”
A graduate of Woonsocket High School, Monteiro, 36, says he didn’t know a thing about the pallet business when he launched Lost Brothers Pallet Corp, but his brother-inlaw Wilburto Colon, who had experience with this oftenoverlooked linchpin of the shipping industry, convinced him to take a crack at it.
They launched the business in 2014, leasing a small section of a warehouse on Singleton Street before relocating to the former Grossman’s, where Colon is now foreman.
The Freedonia Group, a market research company, projects that sales of new and refurbished pallets will expand 3.5 percent this year, reaching 1.3 billion units worth about $17 billion.
“I knew nothing about the pallet business three years ago, but I’m also the kind of guy that thinks outside the box,” says Monteiro.
Pallets probably don’t get the respect they deserve as the workhorses of the shipping industry. Designed to work hand-in-glove with forklifts, they’re used for moving everything from pineapples to piñatas across the land, sea and air, but they’re often seen discarded on roadsides or splintered up for kindling when they’re broken or no longer wanted.
Monteiro says he figured out pretty quickly that a broken pallet is just an opportunity to make some money. It’s a very competitive business, but Monteiro says he can buy broken pallets, fix them up and resell them for many times the purchase price – often to the same companies he bought them from.
There’s no such thing as waste in the pallet business, he says. Lost Brothers has been reselling wood strapping that’s taken too much wear and tear to Smithfield Peat, a company that grinds them into dust and converts them into compost.
“I’ve always been an entrepreneur,” says Monteiro.
Before he got into the pallet business, he’d been working in New York as a commodities trader, buying and selling things like crude oil, cocoa and cotton for a company called Draw Opportunity.
That’s another line of work he knew nothing about when he got into it. He says he met the owner on a golf course and he was pretty much hired on the spot. He says the owner, Andrew Handler, seemed satisfied when Monteiro told him he was good at math.
Getting into the commodities business was a trial by fire – like learning an entirely new language and culture, says Monteiro. But he adapted quickly and loved it.
Monteiro worked for the company for eight years, but he had to look for another line of work when the owner of the company decided to retire at the tender age of 38.
After Monteiro graduated from Woonsocket High School, he enrolled at Northwood University in Florida, intending to earn a degree in business management. He took courses for five years before he decided to drop out and get involved in business in a more hands-on way.
The name of the pallet company, incidentally, was inspired by a chum from Northwood – a guy he hit if off with so well they felt like brothers.
School, he admits, was kind of boring, and the transition to work seemed natural, since most of his teachers were running businesses.
One of his first serious jobs was with an upscale chain of restaurants in the Palm Beach area of Florida that were operated by Frank Caniglio. In one of them, Cucina, he mingled with the rich and famous. President Trump’s daughter Ivanka was a regular. Since he was the manager, he got a chance to talk to her on occasion.
She made quite an impression on Monteiro.
“She’s a great person,” he says. “Hopefully, she’s our first female president in eight years. She’s a very smart woman.”