About Maple Landmark
Founder and owner Mike Rainville first started with wood as a hobby in the 1970’s while he was a young boy in school. Mike continued woodworking as a hobby and sold his work to friends and neighbors. As business began to pick up, he decided he needed a name for his woodworking company. The choice "Maple Landmark" as the name for the business was a natural extension of the name Mike's family used for their maple sugaring business and dairy farm, Maple Landmark Homestead. In 1987, Mike acquired the Troll's Toy Workshop, formerly of Barnet, VT. This addition brought in many products based on the alphabet including letter cars, blocks, and signage letters. The company quickly went from Mike plus some part-time help to several full-time employees. The product line grew and evolved over the coming years, now nearly 3 decades later, the company has expanded to be a landmark of its own kind. Maple Landmark strives to purchasing everything they use “locally” (in the USA) and they succeed to the point that only about 1% of their budget goes to purchase foreign-sourced items.
What about the Wood Maple Landmark uses?
Maple Land mark speaks out - With wood being the main ingredient, it is rather important to find local sources for the lumber we buy. Fortunately, the best woods grow right in our back yard and we don't go very far. For the entire history of our company, 29 years, we have purchased the majority of our lumber from one local source, Lathrop's Maple Supply of Bristol, Vermont. Tom Lathrop is located just nine miles up the road and supplies not just maple, but pine, cherry, and other species as well. Tom's is a fifth generation business with a focus on local, sustainable harvested logs.
Product safety and quality
The majority of our products are toys and we take toy safety seriously. As required, we follow the US Consumer Product Safety Commission rules, including the Consumer Products Safety Improvement Act of 2008. Our most recent third-party tests (Feb. 2009) have re-confirmed all previous tests to lead and heavy metals. Although it is currently unnecessary to test for phthalates in our products, we have done so. We have passed all of those tests as well.
Our efforts do not stop there. We strive to produce product that will last for generations. This means going beyond minimum guidelines. Everyone has experienced the toy that broke the day after Christmas. That probably isn't a lack following official guidelines but it is from a lack of concern for overall quality. For example, a softwood block is safe; a hard maple block as ours are made from is superior quality!
Made in Vermont, USA.
