“I can’t promise that we are going to be perfect, but I can guarantee that we will be better one year from now than we are today.” ~ Marc Sanderson

Wilkie Sanderson has been creating unique wood products since 1975, when Ronald and Dianne Schmitz bought Gruba Cabinets in Sauk Rapids, Minnesota. Gruba had three employees and $50,000 in sales that year, specializing in residential cabinetry. In 1976, the company changed its name to Ron’s Cabinets and grew to $80,000 in sales. Three years later, it moved into the present 55,000-square-foot location on Summit Avenue, just a block west of Highway 10. Surviving the building recession of the early 1980s, it expanded into the commercial market, and by 1997, commercial casegoods and millwork had become 75 percent of sales.

That same year, Walter Wilkie and Marc Sanderson purchased Ron’s Cabinets and began a gradual shift in focus to serve the commercial market exclusively through the newly named Wilkie Sanderson company.

Today, commercial architectural woodworking is all we do, managing projects well beyond Minnesota’s borders. In 2003, we invested in equipment and training for solid surface fabrication, making Wilkie Sanderson one of only six certified Minnesota architectural woodworking firms to fabricate its own solid surface materials.

Today, we are the largest custom Architectural Woodworking Institute (AWI) firm in the state, with 90 skilled workers. A company doesn’t become this large without serving its clients well. Here’s how we offer an extraordinary value for our clients.

We hire exceptional people and work in teams that capture our wide-ranging skills.  We truly believe that the sum is greater than the parts when it comes to our employees. Individually, they are skilled craftsmen and craftswomen. Together, we are more creative, more imaginative and more eager to tackle any of the woodworking challenges that come our way. If your vision includes wood, we can make it a reality.

We have more control over information than any other woodworking company.  We are adamant about keeping up with technology. By tracking the manufacturing process with proprietary software we have developed and continue to refine, we can answer your questions quickly and accurately.

We listen to our clients and provide them with products and services that meet their needs better than any other woodworking company.  Architects have come to rely on us to make their designs a reality, because our creativity and unwavering attention to quality stand out from the crowd. It’s the small details of our work that make the difference, whether it is our on-time performance guarantee [hot link] or our online access to projects. Together, they instill confidence and dependability.

Our spirit defines who we are. To guide our work, we have created 12 essential and enduring tenets that are intrinsic to our company. We call them our creed. All 12 tenets work in unity, so we never have to sacrifice one to achieve another. Together, they serve as a filter through which we view our employees and through which our employees view the company.