Company History
Trend Millwork Inc. was founded by William John Muzzatti of Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
57 years ago, the young maverick started “Bill Muzzatti Woodcraft” in the basement of his home in Windsor.
In less than three years, Muzzatti outgrew his basement shop & wore out his Ford pick-up truck making countless deliveries to residential & commercial clients throughout Windsor & Essex County. Very quickly, he decided that to play it safe was not to play & proceeded to start up “Essex Cabinetmakers”, a small manufacturing facility located on Eugenie Street in Windsor. Within the same year, Muzzatti opened up three other satellite millwork facilities: London, Hamilton, Ottawa & an office in Montreal, Quebec. “High expectations are the key to everything I do in life,” said Muzzatti; and with that he didn’t wait for inspiration to come, he went after it with a club & opened up “Interstate Millwork” in Detroit, Michigan, a very small millwork shop which laid the foundation for the great success that Trend Millwork is in the United States today.
After founding Trend Millwork & Cabinets of Windsor, Ontario, Canada in the spring of 1964, the company’s founding father, William John Muzzatti threw all caution to the wind & risked everything by forging a full-out assault on the architectural woodworking market in the United States.
This was done by moving into a small 3,000 square foot facility on Detroit’s Lyndon Avenue. With a staff of three, Trend Millwork USA managed to secure several small projects that summer with much more to come throughout the 1960’s.
During the early 1980’s, it became very apparent that the amount of work Trend Millwork was securing & the type of clients they were working for, was dictating a more logical logistics move of the Lyndon location to somewhere near the Ambassador Bridge & the Canadian border, where Trend’s affiliate in Windsor, Ontario was also manufacturing wood products for the U.S facility to assemble.
Construction plans were issued to the downriver community of Lincoln Park on June 30, 1988 & the shovels went into the ground shortly thereafter. The new manufacturing facility would be located at the corner of John A. Papalas Drive & Cicotte Street, its current location which is a mere seven miles from the Canadian border.
Not to be outdone, the success of the much larger ‘modern’ facility in Windsor, Ontario has brought great success in the last several decades. With 65,000 square feet of manufacturing space to work with, the Windsor plant combines skilled craftsmen with the latest manufacturing techniques & equipment to give Trend the capacity for projects of any size. From material handling & sorting, to machining, to assembly, to finishing, to shipping, one walk through the Canadian operation will demonstrate Trend’s capability in all phases of architectural millwork manufacturing.
In recent years Trend has taken on more U.S-based work & its union workforces in both Michigan & Ontario have been pumping product out the door at a steady pace. Back in the mid-1990’s, Muzzatti began to wonder why Trend Millwork USA could not supply & install wood products to general contractors exclusively, like some of their carpenter contractor clients. By the spring of 1997, the decision was made to open up Trend Carpentry, the third jewel in the crown of Trend companies. Trend Carpentry would be a union carpenter contractor that would only install the work of Trend Millwork USA. Over the years, Trend Carpentry work crews range from 12 to 80 union carpenters along with a loyal stable of highly experienced carpenter foremen.
Over the last ten years, Trend Millwork has been considered a full-service carpenter contractor with the versatility to give general contractors & construction managers’ one price to design, manufacture & install custom architectural woodworking products. The mark of a flexible millwork operation is its capacity to manufacture many projects with the same dedication, experience, quality & success. When you stroll through either the Lincoln Park or Windsor operation, it’s not uncommon to see nurse’s stations, casino cash cages, prefinished wood paneling, hospital patient room headboards, wardrobes, base & upper cabinets, shelving, laboratory casework, benches, handrail, wood doors & door frames, all being detailed & produced at the same time for a myriad of clients.
The final test as a leader is that he leaves behind him, in other men, the conviction & the will to carry on. On July 9, 2007, Trend Millwork lost its founder, father figure & great leader – William John Muzzatti. In true “Muzzatti” fashion, the company never missed a beat upon his passing. The team simply picked up the ball & ran with it.
“When life kicks you, let it kick you forward,” says David Muzzatti, President & son of the founder. “In woodworking, my father found a niche & then became the absolute best there was in that field. I am not Bill Muzzatti. I don’t pretend to be. I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false & to incur my own abhorrence.”
Trend Millwork in Michigan & Ontario have been functioning as a union manufacturing business in its 30,000 square foot facility in Lincoln Park for 20 years now & its 65,000 square foot facility in Windsor since 1964. The custom architectural firm continues to be in big demand by clients all over North America.
“High expectations are the key to everything we do at Trend Millwork,” says the Windsor born, Ann Arbor resident. “Failure is not a crime around here but low aim most certainly is.”
Muzzatti believes the future is bright for Trend Millwork with limitless possibilities. In 2007, the 44-year-old president revealed the new corporate slogan: We Manufacture The Impossible. “We don’t accomplish anything in this world alone & here at Trend Millwork, what ever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of our existence on both sides of the border along with all the weavings of individual threads from one another that creates something competitive, something special & that lends itself to our new slogan.” The Trend Team tackles projects the competition simply cannot manage. “Our customers don’t expect everything will go right all the time,” says Muzzatti. “The big test is what the The Team can do when things go wrong – this is where we earn our stripes.”
