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Listings are often submitted months in advance. Always verify dates and locations with sponsor before making plans to attend.

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Mississippi Building Material Dealers Assn. - Aug. 9-10, midyear meeting, Imperial Palace, Biloxi, Ms.; (601) 26'7-5522.

National Hardware Show - Aug. ll-13, McCormick Place, Chicago, Il.; (847) 605-1025.

Hoo-Hoo International - Aug. l1-14, annual convention, Minneapolis, Mn.; (800) 9'79-9950.

National Hardwood Lumber Association - Aug. L4-16, hardwood grading shoft course, Memphis, Tn.; (901) 377-1818.

Moore-Handley - Aug. 16-18, fall show, Jefferson Convention Complex, Birmingham, Al.; (205) 663-8235.

Florida Building Material Association - Aug. 22-24, annual convention & show, Renaissance Resort, Orlando, Fl.; (352) 383-0366.

International Woodworking Fair - Aug. 22-25, Georgia World Congress & Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Ga.; (770) 246-0608.

Texas Home & Garden Show - Aug.23-25, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, Tx.; (800) 654-1480.

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National Association of Women in Construction - Sept, 4-7, annual meeting, Opryland Hotel, Nashville, Tn.; Sept.5, chapter meeting, Austin, Tx.; (512) 476-5534.

Southwest Regional Concrete Homebuilder Show - Sept. 5-6, Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center, San Antonio, Tx.; (801) 373-0013.

Texas Home & Garden Show - Sept. 6-8, Market Hall, Dallas, Tx.: (800) 654-1480.

Orgill, Inc. - Sept. 7 -9, fall dealer market, Baltimore Convention Center, Baltimore, Md.; (901) 948-3381.

Hardware Distribution Warehouse - Sept. 8-9, fall market, Convention Center, Hot Springs, Ar.; (318) 686-8527

Kentucky Lumber & Building Material Dealers AssociaitonSept. 9-13, Bill Darling estimating seminars, Holiday Inn I-65, Bowling Green, Ky.; (502) 844-1774.

Southern Building Material Association - Sept. 10, negotiation skills for buyers seminar, Raleigh, N.C.; (800) 849-1503.

National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors - Sept. 11-12, networking conference, Chicago, ll.; (202) 872-0885.

Texas Home & Garden Show - Sept. 13-15, Fort Worth Convention Center, Fort Worth, Tx.; (800) 654-1480.

Florida Hardware Co. - Sept. 14-15, fall show, Hyatt Orlando, Orlando, Fl.; (904) 783-1650.

Southern Forest Products Association - Sept. 14-18, joint annual meeting with APA-The Engineered Wood Association, Hyatt Regency Grand Cypress, Orlando, Fl.; (504) 443-4464.

American Wood-Preservers' Association - Sept. 15-20, technical committee meetings, Baltimore, Md.; (817) 326-6300.

Lumbermen's Association of Texas - Sept. 17-19, estimating seminar, Comfort Inn, Lafayette, La.; (512) 472-1194.

Virginia Tech Center for Forest Products Marketing & Management - Sept. 18-19, selling forest products shortcourse, Donaldson Brown Hotel & Conference Center, Blacksburg, Va.: (540) 231-5876.

Kentucky Forest Industries Association - Sept. 2O-2L, Kentucky Wood Expo, Laurel County Fairgrounds, London, Ky.; (800) 203-9217.

Handy Hardware Wholesale - Sept. 20-22, fall market, George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston, Tx.; (713) 644-1495.

Builder Marts of America - Sept. 22-24, fall. market, Baltimore, Md.: (864) 29'7-6t01.

Southern Building Material Association - Sept. 23, blueprint reading seminar; Sept. 24-26, estimating seminar, Richmond, Va.; (800) 849-1503.

Lumbermens Association of Texas has enlisted Bill Darling to lead a three-day estimating seminar Sept. 11-19 at the Comfort Inn, Lafayette, La.

Construction Suppliers' Association presented its Dedicated Service Award to Nick Massengill, Robert Bowden Inc., Marietta, Ga., during its summer management conference.

Florida Building Material Association will feature a Product Knowledge University at its annual convention and trade show Aug.22-25 at the Renaissance Resort near Sea World in Orlando, Fl.

Attendees can receive instruction

FBI Nabs Depot Scam Trio

Three illegal Irish nationals may face federal charges and deportation after being arrested in June for allegedly scamming Home Depots across the nation of approximately $400,000.

John Hay, 55; Linda Broderick,48, and Anthony Davenport, 46, apparently toured the country in a van and a 26-ft. trailer for which they paid cash.

According to California police, the trio replaced Depot bar codes with homemade forgeries that rang up items at a significant discount.

The group then returned the items for the full price, netting themselves a lucrative cash refund.

In January the suspects switched to gift certificates after Depot stopped issuing cash for returns. Officials say a person in Dallas, Tx., bought $80,000 worth of gift certificates from the suspects for a third of the face value.

In addition to Home Depots across the West, the trio hit stores in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana. Texas and Oklahoma.

"It's a brilliant scam, but the big thing about it is that they made the money in seven months," said San Leandro police detective Kathy Pickard. "Theyjust got really big, fast."

Officials speculate the scam dates back to October 2001.

Police have seized a total of $750,000 in Canadian and U.S. bank accounts.

on everything from architectural millwork to mold and mildew, as well as continuing education credits, admission [o the Florida Building Products and Design Show, and lunch on the show floor.

Kentucky Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association is host- ing Bill Darling estimating seminars next month at the Holiday Inn I-65, Bowling Green. Classes will cover small projects Sept. 9, residential blueprint reading Sept. 10, and residential framing lumber Sept. I l-13.

Southern Building Material Association is sponsoring a class on negotiation skills for purchasing professionals Sept. l0 in Raleigh, N.C., and Bill Darling seminars on blueprint reading Sept. 23 in Richmond, Va., and on estimating Sept. 24-26 in Richmond and Oct. 8-10 in Pineville, N.C.

Road Work Gets Yard Moving

The owners of Locust Hardware, Locust, N.C., have relocated, expanded and renamed their business Southgate Masonry & Lumber, Concord. N.C.

Dot Vanderburg and her daughter, Dakeita Vanderburg-Horton, began thinking of the move two years ago after learning the adjacent highway would be widened. Increasing traffic already vibrated the wooden floors of their 55-year-old, 25,000-sq. fi. hardware store.

Rather than fight the project, the owners saw an opportunity lo grow their business. They spent $2 million for land and a five-building, 40,000sq. ft. complex, including a 9,000-sq. ft. showroom and 4,500-sq. fi. shed to mix mortar and sand.

The new location carries more hardware offerings and, being 20 miles closer to some key customers, has lowered fuel costs for company delivery trucks.

Dow Recharges Buildscape

Dow Chemical, previously a minority shareholder in Buildscape, has acquired f'ull ownership of the e- commerce firm from holding company Riverside Group, Jacksonville, Fl.

Stephen Wilson, c.e.o. of struggling 95-unit Wickes Lumber, is also Riverside's c.e.o. and majority owner.

Dow said its goal is to expand Buildscape, not to shut it down. Buildscape, which once had nearly 200 workers, now employs fewer than one quarter that amount.

Potlatch Expands Softwoods

To rely more heavily on its own timber supply, Potlatch Corp. will expand production at its southern pine mills in Waren and Prescott, Ar., by as much as 30Vo, while closing its Bradley hardwood mill in Warren.

The company's Arkansas timberlands are composed primarily of softwoods, forcing the Bradley mill to buy most of the oak it required from other companies.

The firm is currently installing additional dry kilns at both sites to help increase each mill's capacity to 230 million bd. ti.

Potlatch bought the Bradley hardwood mill in Warren in 1958. curtailed production earlier this year, and has now put the facility up fbr sale.

Talpx Pulls Plug On Exchange

Talpx Inc., one of the leading ecommerce market service providers to the forest products industry, has discontinued operations.

Talpx president Jim Olmedo attributed the closure to a "challenging economic environment and reduced capital spending industrywide."

Although Talpx's Web site went offline soon after the July 12 decision to shut down, Olmedo expected the member exchange to remain open until mid-August.

Since its first electronic lumber transaction in April 1999, Talpx developed a selling base that included nearly 4O7o of lumber production and 157o of panel production, as well as a buyer base of |,500 locations.

C.C. Crow Publications. which was acquired by Talpx last year, will continue to operate independently.

Earlier this year, Talpx helped Cox Industries, Orangeburg, S.C., develop the industry's first private branded exchange, coXchange, which went live July 20. Cox's Mike Johnson said the changes at Talpx "will slow us down." since they may require another company to host and support the site.

Depot Sells To Feds Again

After enduring several weeks of public controversy last month, Home Depot decided to reverse its policy of not doing business with the U.S. government.

The Atlanta, Ga.-based retailer said the policy had been in place for years and was a result of the company not being able to handle the laborrelated paperwork required of a federal contractor.

Critics of Home Depot's policy speculated that the company has instituted the measure to avoid being subjected to federal affirmative action policies.

Depot officials would not comment extensively on the policy reversal, instead saying only that the change "was based on feedback" from customers and employees.

The timing of Home Depot's decision not to work with the government puzzled many, coming just weeks after the company reached an agreement with the U.S. Labor Department to "recruit, screen, and refer" 40,000 job applicants for the chain's new stores that are opening each week.

Do lt Best Goes Wireless

This month Do it Best Corp. will begin rolling out handheld devices that allow its retail members to process orders, deliveries, item maintenance, physical count and price changes from anywhere within their store.

The new in-store CS2000 Mobile Manager system features a handheld device with barcode scanner that can communicate with the in-store central server, both when attached to its network and remotely via wireless.

Do it Best's Jeff Wilson said the software will also allow memberretailers to create purchase orders while away at the co-op's buying markets, then upload the orders when they return to their stores, either by wireless or when attached to the instore network.

EWP Mills Feted For Safety

APA-The Engineered Wood Association has recognized l0 Southern engineered wood products mills as part of its 2001 Mill Safety competition.

The competition honors facilities with the lowest accident rates based in Occupational Safety and Health

Administration guidelines.

Divisional winners for 2002 in the South included Louisiana-Pacific, Silsbee, Tx., mill; Georgia-Pacific Corp., Prosperity, S.C., and GeorgiaPacific Corp., Gloster, Ms.

The mills with the safest average over a three-year period (1999-2001) included Georgia-Pacific's Grenada OSB mill, Duck Hill, Ms.; Weyerhaeuser Co. (formerly Willamette Industries), Zwolle, La., and G-P, Prosperity.

Top l0 award winners included

Intemational Paper Co., Thorsby, Al.; Georgia-Pacific, Madison, Ga.; Weyerhaeuser Co., Zwolle; G-P, Crossett, Ar.; International Paper (now Nexfor), Jefferson, Tx., and LP, Carthage, Tx.

Established originally for plywood, OSB and veneer facilities in only the United States, the 20-year-old competition is now open to all U.S. and Canadian structural engineered wood products mills, including glulam, Ijoist and laminated veneer lumber facilities.

Cypress Millwork Makes lts Stand

Despite a continuing trend away from wood siding, more people are putting cypress back inside their homesfor moulding, paneling and other interior applications.

Although cypress is best known for exterior uses, one well known manufacturer thinks the wood's aesthetic and machining properties are such that he wouldn't mind if a// cypress were used indoors.

"Cypress is beginning to recapture markets it lost 20 years ago," says Tom Reke, Coastal Lumber Co., Weldon, N.C. "We're excited to see more and more people viewing it for applications other than as a workhorse for exteriors. They see how well it finishes and appreciate its natural beauty. They like the lighter, airier color, which is a very hot trend right now. And, it mills well."

Agrees Donald Elder, Elder Forest Products, Crowley, La.: "Cypress is a moderately hard wood, inherently stable. It glues well, sands and planes excellently, and, of course, you can stain it or finish it much nicer than cedar or redwood because it doesn't have that dark color. Millwork

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manufacturers like it because whereas other species are having to ship shorter lengths, we can ship longer lengths."

Reke attributes the trend, in part, to "the cedar situation. Cypress is price competitive."

The resurgence has been eye-opening, especially for consumers, says Reke. "You ask the average Joe, and he thinks cypress is extinct or protected. He doesn't realize how much of a good selection is available," Reke says.

Elder also cites competitive pricing and workability as key factors in cypress' growth. Elder Forest Products, which uses cypress for moulding blanks, recently introduced special kits to boost cypress use among millwork and furniture manufacturers.

"Let's say it takes 40 pieces to make one item," Elder explains. "We put those 40 pieces together in a kit. Every component is guaranteed 1007o usable. The kit eliminates so much work for our industrial accounts that one of our customers on the West Coast iust shut down his saws and his sanders."

Designing New Storage Structures

Efficient covered storage for building materials has become a greater concern over the last few years. This is due to the inventory loss that occurs when product is left exposed to the elements.

Also, the topic of mold has become a concern with lawsuits pending, and the media publicizing the issue. The solution to these problems is either a bulk storage building, a rack-supported structure, or a hybrid ofthe two.

When designing a structure to store your building materials, the two aspects to consider are the inventory to be

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Arkansas and Louisiana, call Rusco Packaging stored and the location of the building on the yard.

The first step to beginning a building design is to formulate a material list of all the products that need to be stored (dimensional lumber, pressure treated, engineered products, plywood, roofing, etc.). This will ultimately determine the overall size and layout of the building, assuming there are no site limitations. If site restrictions exist, then this would point to a rack-supported building, which utilizes vertical storage on a limited footprint.

"Once we have the inventory list, we design the building with column spacing, building height, and enclosed areas that are customized to the yard's particular product mix," says Clint Darnell, v.p.-building material sales, Sunbelt Storage Systems, Alpharetta, Ga. "Since every yard's inventory varies by quantity and type, there is no such thing as a 'standard building.' If the building design is handled this way, you will end up with a structure that will not optimize your storage space, or store your inventory properly. Land is a limited resource, so you cannot afford to handicap yourself by underutilizing your yard space."

An equally important portion of the building design is locating the structure on your site. First, you must contend with the site requirements that the city or county imposes (set-backs, waste management, green space).

Additional factors also come under consideration when positioning a building properly. "Traffic flow is obviously a primary concern," Darnell says. "A lumberyard or a distribution facility is a congested work environment, with flatbed and forklift traffic. We locate the building or buildings to facilitate a safe and efficient flow of material and vehicle traffic."

He adds, "The primary reason that you would construct a building is to cover the material to prevent loss due to weather. Anyone who makes a close analysis of his or her inventory loss due to exposure knows that the financial impact is significant. Therefore, we take the weather direction and material location within the building into account when positioning a building on your site."

In summary, in order to reduce inventory loss and streamline your operations, a rack-supported structure or bulk storage building provides a cost effective solution. The specific design of the building should be geared toward your yard's unique requirements.

Wholesaler Celebrates Gentennial

This month, wholesaler Snavely Forest Products celebrates a century in the building materials business and attributes their longevity to innovation.

According to Snavely, marketing new products and services that meet the growing demands for specialty lumber and building materials markets has helped define the company in an industry rife with change over recent years.

"By constantly maintaining our mission of innovation, we continue to differentiate ourselves in the marketplace, which helps position us for long-term growth," said president and c.e.o. Stephen Snavely. "Our industry has faced a number of new market dynamics-from consolidation and regulations to an explosion of new engineered and composite products, so it is an integral part of our business strategy that we continue to adapt to the times while remaining always true to our core business."

That core business is providing customers access to high quality lumber and building materials from around the world. According to Stephen Snavely, "One aspect that defines Snavely Forest Products is the significant amount of resources that go into marketing support and development when introducing new products that serve an everexpanding market."

The company was founded in Saginaw, Mi., as Germain Lumber Corp., and moved to Pittsburgh, Pa., in 1902. C.M. Snavely joined the company in 1954 and in 1958 purchased Germain Lumber Co., which primarily operated as a direct shipping wholesaler. The name was changed to Snavely Forest Products in 1977.

In 1960, the company established a small distribution facility in Pittsburgh to service Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and New York. From 1979 through the late I 990s, Snavely continued to expand by opening regional sales and distribution facilities to accommodate the company's growth, including locations in Greensboro, N.C.; Winter Haven, Fl.; Dallas, Tx.; Baltimore, Md.; Smithton, Pa.; Denver, Co.; Phoenix, Az., and San Francisco, Ca. Snavely's product line spans all species of pine and spruce boards in a variety of select and common grades.

In addition, Snavely markets Kimberly Bay Pine, a select plantation-grown pine with excellent application properties which has helped to position Snavely International as a leader in providing environmentally sound products. The product has received Forest Stewardship Council certification. In fact, plantation grown, recycled or reconstituted wood products now account for more than 70Vo of the company's $200 million in annual sales.

While pine has traditionally defined Snavely with customers, the company's core products also include engineered wood products, wood polymer composite decking, vinyl fencing and railing, and custom exterior doors.