National Hardwood Magazine - May 2023

In Memoriam
Tito Gori
Tito Gori was born in Italy on November
23, 1941, and sadly passed
away in his hometown of Newton,
NC recently.
His father, Lorenzo Gori, started
ALA, the family’s Italian company,
in 1946 after World War II, and the company started to
succeed rapidly due to high demand for pine and Formica
panels.
At 23 years old, Tito lost his father, and the partners
quickly nominated him the new president of ALA. So, he
had to let go of all activities that a typical 23-year-old has
and get to work to maintain what his father had started.
As the years went by, ALA became one of the biggest
lumber importers in Italy. Tito was traveling the world
throughout the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s importing exotic species
form Africa and Asia, softwoods from Northern and
Eastern Europe, all the way to panels from Chile. He
also imported U.S. softwoods and Hardwoods. During
those years, he traveled to countries that no Italian lumber
importer had gone to before and succeeded in building
strong and long-term relationships. At one point, as
there were still no containers, he was importing full ships
of lumber just for ALA from Singapore and Malaysia.
Finally, in 1993, he decided to open Lawrence Lumber,
which was a simple purchasing office in Erie, PA,
where he began importing Cherry and Northern Oak for
ALA directly, without having to go through agents in Italy,
as well as species from Canada. That led to moving
south to North Carolina, where he began in 2000
the Lawrence Lumber concentration yard that produced
mainly Poplar for ALA and that is now known for exporting
quality lumber with a name that is respected around
the world.
Please turn to page 89
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MAY 2023 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 79