She’s a Mother of 5, a Sculptor, a Lumber Baron : Business: Josephine Baker parlayed $3,000 in savings into a $2-million operation dealing in Southern yellow pine.

NIXA, Mo. —  In 1982, Josephine Baker was a housewife and mother of five who gambled her $3,000 life savings to buy a bankrupt wholesale lumber business, something she knew little about.

Powers Wholesale Lumber’s annual sales have soared from $40,000 that first year to $2 million today thanks to Baker’s business acumen and demand for the company’s sole product--Southern yellow pine.

“This was something that I could be with the kids and make some money and that also would allow me to do my art work,” said Baker, a sculptor. But “it just kept growing until we had to build a warehouse.”

Five to eight semitrailers filled with cut Southern yellow pine boards arrive weekly at Baker’s warehouse and office complex outside this Ozarks community from a mill in central Arkansas.

The popular wood--coveted for its strength and durability--has dozens of industrial and commercial construction uses, from highway bridges to ocean piers. Home construction uses include roof trusses and joists, kitchen cabinets, doors, flooring and furniture.

Baker’s largest customer is Springfield-based Tracker Marine, the nation’s largest manufacturer of fishing and pontoon boats, which incorporates the wood in the 20,000 trailers it makes a year.

The federal government is also a customer. The Justice Department buys pine from Powers Wholesale to build bed frames and pallets for prisons, she said.

“We have high standards for the lumber we buy, and Josephine’s been able to meet that,” said Chuck Peterson, purchasing manager for Tracker Marine. “She’s very much customer service oriented and watches the lumber market, which is volatile, for us and tries to give us guidance.”

Baker’s brother, an architect, started the business with a single truck but later sold out and moved to California. The new buyer went bankrupt about a year later.

“My mom said: ‘You want the truck? You think you could sell lumber?’ ” said Baker. “I said, ‘Well, I could try.’ ”

The 52-year-old Baker, who is divorced, said she learned quickly about the lumber business, and sales increased. She employs one full-time worker besides herself, and one part-time employee.

Baker said she has gained an appreciation for others who run small businesses.

“I never realized how hard a person really has to work and how much effort has to be put into a business,” she said. “It’s hard--the book work, accounts receivable, your cost of goods, taking care of your customers.

“And the hours--it takes 70, 80 hours a week.”

Being a woman in the male-dominated lumber industry hasn’t been easy, Baker acknowledged.

Some male callers have asked her to put the boss on the line, assuming she must be a secretary. A few potential customers wouldn’t do business with her because she’s a woman, and male employees have quit because they didn’t like taking orders from a woman, she said.

Then there was the retired lumber executive Baker consulted for advice on how to increase sales. He suggested that Baker get out of the wholesale lumber business and make wooden toy animals at home, she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

She thinks her being a woman “causes problems for some people. But we’re growing, so we’re not doing too bad.”

Baker said she doesn’t consider herself a role model for other aspiring businesswomen, but concedes: “Being a woman, there’s a little more pressure to succeed.”

The toughest part of being a woman in the lumber business is getting financing, Baker said. In fact, every bank she has applied to for a loan has turned her down, she said.

“The banks look at you funny because you’re a woman,” she said. “You’re not taken seriously. Basically, I don’t have any financing here, I’ve had to do all this myself. Every penny I’ve made has gone back into the business.”

When no bank would give her a loan to build a 10,000-square-foot warehouse last spring, she built it herself--out of Southern yellow pine, naturally--with $70,000 of her own money. She pounded nails and hung doors along with the workers she hired.

Baker hopes to keep her company growing through federal and state programs that award contracts to businesses owned by women.

Baker also has begun selling hand-painted ceramic tiles from Italy for use in kitchens and flooring. And she sees a growing market for recycled wood, which is removed from old buildings and refinished for such things as paneling and flooring in homes.

“You’re not cutting down trees, you’re taking good used lumber and cleaning it up,” she said.