Marcail McWilliams knows where wool comes from, of course, but as owner of Valley Oak Wool Mill in Woodland, CA, she says it’s humorous to visit her customers’ operations and see the valuable fiber resting on a sheep’s back. Once it’s sheared, however, that fleece is in good hands with the California College of the Arts graduate who can’t imagine doing anything other than running a wool mill.
Valley Oak caters to a niche market in the industry, and McWilliams says much of the fiber she processes wouldn’t be considered valuable in the mainstream wool market.
“People are surprised that my customers get $25 per pound for some of this wool,” she said. “It’s fun for me to go to my customers’ farms and see the actual animals that produce the wool I’ve been processing for years. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know my customers and learning about sheep from the wool perspective.”
While she’s owned the former Yolo Wool Mill for less than five years, McWilliams began working in the mill in 2009 under former owner Jane Deamer, so some of those customer relationships are more than a decade old at this point.
“I know that I could be more efficient,” she said. “But I like being able to provide a service to my customers. My average customer is probably about 30 lbs. per order, but I can do as little as 10 lbs. It can come from just one animal if that’s what they want. I might have a customer come to me and say, ‘This is Ladybug’s final shearing, and I want to knit a sweater out of it,’ and that’s really cool to me.”
A self-described art enthusiast in high school, McWilliams was already on that path when she took a single ag class her senior year. She immediately wished she’d found her way into agriculture earlier, but at that point, there was no turning back. Coming home to work in a wool mill after college allowed her the chance to combine art and ag in her professional life.
“This is the direction that I feel like I would have liked my life to go in,” she said. “I ended up in art school, but I was always most comfortable in the textiles department. This is where I felt like I was supposed to be all along.”
After almost seven years as an employee at the mill, McWilliams left to work with Mystic Pines Fiber Processing in Arizona. But she always knew she would be coming back to California at some point.
“I went down there from the start telling them that my goal was to run a mill in California,” she said. “They were willing to let me work for them short-term. I think we realized that we could both benefit from my time there. But the owner in Arizona kept asking me, ‘Are you sure you want to run a mill in California?’ I’m glad that I came back. I felt like I was set up to do this. I had to at least give it a try.”
So when Deamer retired, McWilliams headed back to Woodland to fulfill her destiny. A new owner had purchased the house and business, along with the property’s 20 acres, but they had no interest in running a mill. After looking into a variety of options for how to restart the business, McWilliams settled on a five-year purchase plan for the equipment and a five-year lease on the buildings. Come November of this year, she’ll own the equipment outright.
“I’m still learning a lot,” she said, adding that the business side of the mill has been the most challenging aspect of taking control. Well, that and handling maintenance and repairs on the 70-year-old equipment. “At first, I tended to freak out when something broke down. In the beginning, I was like, ‘That’s it, it’s over.’ Now, I know that it’s going to be okay. In the past year, I’ve impressed myself with how much I’ve been able to do. I’ve gotten pretty good at figuring things out.”
The next thing she’ll have to figure out is where the mill will call home. With her five-year lease up this fall, she’ll have the option of moving the facility.
“Ideally, I would like to own the property wherever the mill ends up. And hopefully it would be in Woodland,” she said. “My parents are still here. I’ve got a good community here, so I don’t want to go too far from here. But land is pretty expensive. There are some cheaper places I could be in California.”
There’s always a chance the mill will stay right where it is on leased ground just off County Road 27 between Woodland and Davis.
“I’m learning what it means to have a business in California,” McWilliams said. “At times, it’s hard and frustrating. Every year it seems like there’s a new hoop for me to jump through. But I’m happy with the way it worked out. I didn’t want to go start my own thing somewhere else. It felt like I had to at least try to make this work.”
Regardless of the location, McWilliams expects to stay busy in the years to come. Yarn orders typically include a year of waiting in line before processing. But the orders continue to flow in.
“Some people who don’t know about sheep wonder if there’s really enough business for me,” McWilliams said. “The answer is ‘Yes.’ I never really shut down. My biggest influx of wool is in May. That seems a bit late to me, but some of my customers are more coastal, and it’s a bit colder over there. So, maybe they wait a little longer to shear.
“With some of the types of wool I get, it’s nicer to work with if they shear twice a year. Sometimes I get a second influx of orders in December. I really like seeing the variety of wool that comes through this mill. I see a lot of Wensleydale, Navajo-Churro, Romney, Shetland. I also get some California Red and Jacob, too.”
Wools from those breeds definitely fall into a niche market, but it’s a niche that feels right at home for McWilliams. — American Sheep Industry Association
