The bitter winter of 1949 to 1950 froze John and Ross Gorman’s orchards, and the brothers needed another way to provide for their growing families. They decided to make and sell fruit boxes, working out of their father’s shed. That shed still stands at the entrance to the mill property.
A family business from the start
The company dates its founding to 1951, when John and Ross started the business with their wives, Edith and Eunice. The family’s roots on the Westside go back further: their father, Milton Bruce Gorman, bought a house in Glenrosa in 1912 and moved the family there in 1915.
In 1953 the brothers set up their first sawmill at Dobbin Mountain, behind Glenrosa, where the logging was done by horse. On November 21, 1969, an electrical fire destroyed the mill. They rebuilt it as a one-inch board mill rather than a dimension mill.
Growing beyond the Westside
The company grew one step at a time:
- 1964: Oroville Bin & Pallet, across the border in Washington State
- 1982: a pole plant, fencing plant and small sawmill in Lumby
- 1990: Downie Timber in Revelstoke
- 2012: Canoe Forest Products, a plywood maker
- 2025: Weyerhaeuser’s Princeton mill, now Similkameen Forest Products
In 1999 a new moulder replaced the old planer, and Gorman became the first to use a moulder to give boards a furniture-finish edge. In 2008, Ross Gorman’s family bought out the John Gorman family’s half of the business.
Still rooted here
Today the West Kelowna mill makes about 130 to 150 million board feet of appearance-grade boards a year, and the Gorman Group employs more than 1,000 people. The people have always been part of the story. In 1978, 62 employees came in on a snowy Saturday in January and worked for free, processing $2,333 worth of lumber as a Christmas thank-you to Ross and John.
“A good name is more desirable than great riches.”
Through Gorman Gives, launched in 2015, the company supports the United Way, Kelowna’s Gospel Mission and the Central Okanagan Food Bank. Beside the mill, a 28-acre vineyard of 47,000 vines honours Eunice Gorman, who died in 2021 at 100.
What it says about doing business here
Gorman’s story shows what can grow from here: a family adapted to what the land gave it, built close to home and kept growing. If you’re building that kind of business, we’d like to hear about it.
Sources: Gorman Group (opens in a new tab); Gorman Group company history (opens in a new tab); Westbank Museum (opens in a new tab); Miller Wood Trade Publishing, July 2026 (opens in a new tab); Weyerhaeuser, September 2025 (opens in a new tab); Summerland Review, March 2026 (opens in a new tab); Gorman Gives (opens in a new tab); Wood Industry, October 2022 (opens in a new tab).
