Flooring Maker Aims To Use Domestic Bamboo

Portland, OR, July 7, 2010--Bamboo Revolution is expanding here, and eventually the company wants to use domestically grown bamboo it its products.

Bamboo Revolution manufactures panels and flooring for the building industry, suitcases and pens. And with a showroom set to open soon in Southeast Portland, and an industrial-scale bamboo farm in the works, Mike Pullen’s business is growing almost as fast as the bamboo itself, according to a story in the Daily Journal of Commerce.

Pullen’s bamboo comes from China, where he is a business partner with a bamboo mill owner. But after negotiating for two years with Andy Ringle, a member of an Avery Island, Louisiana, family that owns one of the oldest timber bamboo groves in the U.S., in 2009 he brought 180 live Moso bamboo plants to Oregon from Louisiana.

“We took our 10-person company down there to clear out 60 years of deadfall from the grove,” Pullen said. “I told Andy, ‘You’ve given me my dream. What’s yours?’ He said, ‘For my family’s legacy to live on.’ ”

The Louisiana plants were planted at Dain Sansome’s Bamboo Valley farm in Albany, Oregon. Pullen plans to eventually make all of his products from Oregon-grown bamboo, though that could be five or 10 years down the road.

“My reason for making money at this point is to further what I can do with bamboo,” Pullen said. “I’d like to be able to control every aspect of my product from seed to the finished product.”