Michael Wood, the former managing director of Woods Timber Co Ltd based in Hull,, died on Saturday June 14th aged 85.
Michael was one of the last of a generation that dealt with the Russians in their pre-Glasnost days when they exported 1.4million m3 to the UK via their state-run company Exportles.
Michael worked closely with his sales director and cousin Hugh, and they were the third generation of the family that ran the company. Michael joined Woods Timber Ltd after leaving St Peter’s school in York joining his father Malcolm and uncles Leslie and Gerald.
Michael gained valuable experience working with them and rose to be managing director as the older generation retired. He became well known to those selling to the UK from suppliers in Sweden, Finland, Canada and Russia and visited suppliers in Sweden and Canada. Woods Timber were renowned for their quality of timber machining and for selling top quality products.
Michael became well known and respected in the trade and had a wonderfully dry sense of humour that was never better seen in than in his speech to a packed Royal Station Hotel when he was chairman of the Yorkshire and Humberside Timber Trade association.
Michael was a keen and talented yachtsman competing in national competitions.
He was a family man and he and his wife of fifty-eight years had two children Belinda and Simon.
Michael was a successful businessman, but his sense of humour made time spent at work more enjoyable for those who worked with him.
He will be missed by all those who knew him and his passing sees one of the last of a generation that worked in Hull when it was a preeminent timber port.
