Bitterroot Composite Lumber Co, Inc was created as a triple bottom line company in Darby, Montana to develop sustainable natural resource jobs, encourage recycling in the state of Montana, and allow our employees to work in good paying jobs.

Darby was heavily impacted by the loss of the local lumber mill in 1996. Since that time the area has been in need of good paying manufacturing jobs.

Darby is also surrounded by the Bitterroot National Forest, the site of dramatic forest fires in the year 2000. In response to those fires, the Forest Service developed their National Fire Plan requiring the thinning of small diameter trees and brush around homes in the “Wildland Urban Interface”. In that plan, there has been a mandate issued to find marketable uses for woody biomass that is currently being disposed of by burning. These fires, along with the prescribed fires used to thin the overgrown forest understory, have been a major cause of poor air quality in the valleys of Western Montana. It is our long term goal to help solve these problems by creating a market for this surplus biomass.

BCLC was founded by Corrine Gantt and John Schneeberger. Our founders have worked closely with our local economic development organizations, and collaborated with local government, civic and environmental groups, to make BCLC a reality. Corrine is a homemaker, financial planner, and local school board trustee. John is a former seed company owner and business consultant. Both our founders have a deep and long term commitment to enhance the environmental and economic health of the community in which they live.