Ridgeons bids farewell to Paul Mazey

Ridgeons, the East Anglian independent timber and builders’ merchant has said goodbye to Paul Mazey, operations manager at Ridgeons Forest Products who has retired from the Groups’ 12-acre timber plant at Herringswell, after 28 years with the company.

Mazey joined the Ridgeons Timber Department at Cromwell Road, Cambridge, in 1986, where he was tasked with establishing Ridgeons Bulk Ltd, on a site in Herringswell which had been acquired from Eastern Counties Sawmill.

It was decided that, the Herringswell site would become the stock holding, production and distribution hub for timber and timber panel products for the whole Group, which Mazey played an intrinsic role in establishing, and became Ridgeons Forest Products (RFP). In 2008 Ridgeons invested £5.5 million in the site, positioning it as the most advanced timber machining and handling installation of its kind within the UK and across Europe.

Investments have included a new single storey building, the introduction of a new machining line upgrade and twin-saw line, and the rolling-out of Wi-Fi capability across the site to enable the implementation of hand held devices and bar codes for product tracking. All of these developments have significantly increased the site’s capacity to meet growing customer demand for machined timber products.

Stephan Wait, sales and marketing manager, says: “Paul is an admired and well respected individual who will be greatly missed. He has a natural ability to get the very best out of his team; he is incredibly committed and positions the customers’ interest at the heart of everything he does, and he also has a wealth of timber knowledge and operational experience that is second to none.”

Following his retirement Mazey hopes to spend more time with his family and in Wales where he and his wife are originally from. He also plans to indulge his passion for customising cars.