Tom Gardner, Founder & CEO, Hay Creek Companies

About Tom: Tom Gardner and his wife Janeen of 26 years and their 4 sons live in Pittsville, WI, the central Wisconsin town where Tom grew up. Tom is the Chief Stewarding Officer of Hay Creek Companies. Tom launched Hay Creek as a trucking company as a one-truck owner/operator in 1985, then grew to a multi-truck trucking company in 1993, and eventually evolved into a pallet company in 2000. Hay Creek Companies manufactures new pallets and recycles broken pallets and waste wood into colored landscape mulch, animal bedding, and wood fuel pellets. Along with the wood pallet business, Tom also operates Hay Creek Cranberry. Partnering with his brother Butch, he operates Gardner Cranberry and Badger State Fruit processing. About Hay Creek: Hay Creek Pallet Co., Inc., was founded in January of 2000 when the opportunity to acquire a small pallet rebuilding operation provided the means to produce and market pallets in Wisconsin, a product that many transportation customers needed. Today, that company has expanded to Hay Creek Companies, a manufacturing operation that has extended its reach with additional industries. Our operation consists of a fully automated saw room that produces our component parts, a new pallet assembly line, a repair and remanufacture assembly line and a pallet dismantle line - all fitted with or powered by some of the latest technology in the industry. The company is a full-service pallet manufacturing operation providing businesses in the food industries, the paper industry and a variety of other industries, with reconditioned, remanufactured and new pallets. Additionally, as a by-product utilization, the company also manufactures premium wood heat pellets, wood landscape mulches and shredded wood animal bedding by recycling wood waste material. Hay Creek Companies is a member of The National Wooden Pallet & Container Association (NWPCA), which is the largest organization of wood packaging professionals in the world.