Engineered Wood Training Online

APA-The Engineered Wood Association now offers free online training to help keep dealers and distributors current on the characteristics and common applications of engineered wood products.

Completion of the class allows you to:

. Answer common questions about engineered wood products and their applications:

Better communicate the benefits of wood structural panels and other engineered wood products; Help customers select the right product for the job; Give customers valuable installation tips, and Increase sales effectiveness and help better serve customers.

Presented in an easy-to-navigate Web format, APA's Wood University is housed at www.wooduniversity.org. Its mission is to expand architects' and building professionals' understanding of engineered wood products and applications through engaging curriculum, which is based on APA's extensive resources.

The products covered include l-joists, glulam beams and wood structural panels, such as plywood, OSB and composite panels.

Wood University courses are free, and classes are always in session. Courses are accredited by the American Institute of Architects continuing education system and the American Institute of Building Designers continuing education program.

Course l0l: Engineered Wood Basics, serves as Wood University's backbone. lncluded are five units, each taking about an hour to complete.

Unit l: Understanding Engineered Wood Products

Unit 2: Selling Engineered Wood

Unit 3: Structural Wood Panel Grades and Application

Unit 4: Glulam Basics

Unit 5: Understanding l-Joists

Wood University's learning center also includes a comprehensive engineered wood glossary, current product specifications and design tables, streaming video clips of engineered wood product manufacturers, and nearly 300 APA publications available for download as PDF files.

Media Stands Up To Radicals

Recently, newspapers have begun refusing to run attack ads from radical environmental groups.

Anti-timber coalitions have used full page ads to pressure retailers to stop selling wood products. Some newspapers readily accept green-group ads making the most outrageous claims so long as they skirt the libel law. Other newspapers used to do the same, but now a few are holding environmentalist attacks to a higher standard than merely evading prosecution.

In March, The Boston Globe refused to run an attack ad against office products retailer Staples. Berkeley, Ca.based Forest Ethics, which has never filed an IRS report form and doesn't exist in California Department of Justice non-profit organization records, submitted the ad. The group apparently is a front for the multi-million-dollar Rainforest Action Network (RAN). Claiming that "thousands of acres of forest are needlessly destroyed every year to supply Staples with cheap, disposable paper products," the ad urged readers to contact Staples' c.e.o. to "ask him to stop destroying our forests." Critics say the campaign was designed to force Staples into the RAN-supported certifica- tion program of the Forest Stewardship Council.

When The Globe refused to run the ad, Forest Ethics offered to remove the phone information. The Globe still refused to run an ad that mentioned Staples by name.

The Seattle Times, too, acted responsibly by refusing to run a different Rainforest Action Network ad, one proposed during the Green Building Conference, a meeting held recently in Seattle to persuade builders to stop using wood.

RAN wanted an advertisement that smeared the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, calling it "a sham" and urging wood buyers to give preference to FSC-certified wood. Shots also were taken at SFI participants Interfor and Boise Cascade.

The Seattle Times refused to run the ad. The sticking point, according to Todd Paglia, anti-logging campaign director, was the mention of Interfor and Boise Cascade by name. But "at that point, the ad is worthless," Paglia said.

But Lloyd Stull, the newspaper's national sales manager, said The Seattle Times only requested documentation to support RAN's assertions.