THINKING Ahead By Bethany Doss
The wonder of lumber hen reflecting on lessons learned from the pandemic, there were a number of angles I could take for this article. How did our company react in the initial months of the pandemic? How has remote work affected our team culture? What are we doing to navigate the resulting rise in lumber prices and supply constraints? But we’re all living that daily and there are only so many lumber memes I can handle in a year. So instead, I decided to write about a 10-year-old boy who exemplifies what I think is the most important lesson from the pandemic. I am extremely passionate about the lumber industry, and just as passionate about recruiting the next generation into this business we all love. A recent experience at work underscored this passion, and reminded me of just how exciting our careers can be. A co-worker’s son—let’s call him Tyler—was assigned a school project focused on the state of California and its history. With the support of his dad, who works in Capital’s Southern California location, he chose to focus his project on forest management and the history of the redwoods. They woke up early and visited one of our suppliers in Northern
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California and watched a logger cut down a tree. His father filmed the experience and captured the look on Tyler’s face when he saw the tree come down—a moment of pure joy, excitement and wonder. That evening, they came over to our house for dinner, along with our coworkers, and we had a great time talking about the fun they had that day. In the midst of him playing tag with my son, I asked what he liked most about the day and he replied
simply: “I didn’t know my dad worked at such a cool place.” In his little 10-year-old way, he was saying he was proud of his dad. My small heart grew three sizes that day! What does this say about our industry? First, there’s a reason why he reacted the way he did. The lumber industry is fun, exciting and sustainable—I’ll say it over and over again. Second, the whole experience—from Tyler joining his father at our supplier’s forest to our colleagues joining
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