Bruce Buckwold is not a household name. He likes it that way. Of course, when you hang out in Western Canada, where he operates one of the more significant flooring distributors in North America, Buckwold Western, the limelight is sure to be avoided.

About eight years ago Buckwold was not in the wood business. Nor were his customers, the independent retailers, to any large extent. While they wanted to be players, they found it difficult to be important because most of the product being sold was being sanded and finished in the home. And this was not their expertise.

So Buckwold Western took on Columbia and another small Canadian mill, and began introducing wood to its customers. While those lines did well, some of its retail partners werefinding difficulty competing with other distributors who were selling direct to the builders and in some cases installing the product.

That’s about when Buckwold decided to source hardwood from around the world and private label the line. Hence the creation of Dansk Hardwood, the manufacturing/marketing arm of Buckwold Western, which enabled its retailers to be competitive with the builder business.

But more volume was needed. “We decided for us to be important and a valuable partner to our suppliers, we had to offer more purchasing power to attract their interest. We decided there were a lot of good distributors with a loyal customer base who market product. So we approached a few of them and offered our services to source and develop product, inspect it on-site, provide total logistics at a very nominal price that would not include any marketing cost to them,” Buckwold said. Its first U.S. customer was Cronin and Co. in the Pacific Northwest in 2000. Interestingly, Buckwold Western purchased its competitor, Wanke Cascade, in 2006, yet Cronin remains one of the 10 Dansk distributors.

Buckwold likes to think of Dansk as a virtual manufacturer. He develops products in terms of styling, raw materials and construction and then visits manufacturing facilities around the globe to get them manufactured. He started with oak, maple and birch in 2¼- and 3¼-inch widths and a small color range. Today the Dansk collection is sourced from three countries and includes virtually everything on the market: solids in 2¼-, 3 ¼- and 5-inch widths in various species—oak, maple, birch, Brazilian cherry, and soon American Walnut. It has also replicated those products in engineered in strip, plank and wide plank. Handscraped and distressed products are also in the 60-SKU line.

Now Buckwold is expanding Dansk by introducing a unique strand woven bamboo product (see story on page 8). That’s just the beginning. He continues to seek innovative products, and recently told FCNews he is working on something very innovative. Stay tuned.