Saving lnnovations to secure the lumber industryts future

II Jutls rHERE ARE signs of modest economic recovery

V V and positive trends in the lumber industry, dangers lurk. Certainly the recovery and housing starts may stall or even decline, but the threats to lumber and the North American lumber industry are even more foundational than economic swings, including a dearth of next generation leaders, threats to timberland, stagnant markets, and global competition.

There are ever-present concerns, but the people of our industry are introducing new ideas, taking risks to avoid stagnation, and addressing many of these issues head-on. Innovation by lumber leaders is evidenced by several bold actions that may help secure the lumber industry's future.

Developing young leaders. While the most obvious lumber job is as a logger, a wide range of new jobs are being created to help support the modern lumber industry. These range from finance and operations, analytic jobs that focus on computers or GPS mapping, to environmental jobs that look at saving and preserving habitats, and helping to handle the current governmental bureaucracy that presents challenges.

Many companies are recognizing that hiring qualified workers, and particularly young people who see lumber as a career, is not only great preparation for the future, but also contributes to current vitality. They see that without the infusion of new ideas, new skills, and young leaders, our companies will grow old and lose their edge.

One group that is tackling this problem is NAWLA, which is dedicated to educating, inspiring, and planting a new generation of leaders throughout our industry. There is strong representation by younger leaders on NAWLA's powerful committees and the youth movement is evident at its premier lumber trade show, Traders Market, where next generation leaders are taking the lead in introducing new ideas, new technologies, and strategies to attract younger professionals into the industry. And once again at this year's Traders Market (in Chicago, Nov. l2-14), a Next Generation event will be featured in the program-a new tradition that has taken root and represents a small but significant step to inspire the involvement of a new generation in lumber leadership.

Bridging landscape and livelihood. To deal with the increasing view of trees as a balm for urban blues rather than an economic crop, many companies are learning about how to bridge the traditional gulf between landscape and livelihood, either through conviction or necessity. For instance, in Maine, 95Vo of the forests are in private hands and nearly half of those private owners are timber companies. But even there, it's getting harder to cut the trees. There's a growing interest by private owners in leaving the woods uncut to promote tourism, or selling lands to conservation trusts and other groups that value trees as devourers of carbon dioxide.

Most major lumber companies have been practicing sustainable forest management for years. Now, many are seeking certification for these good practices that maintain forests' biodiversity, productivity, regeneration capacity, and vitality, addressing the concerns and needs of those valuing timberland as both beautiful landscape and perpetual livelihood.

Adopting new technology. Lumbermen work hard, but in today's business environment that isn't always enough. Leaders are increasingly turning to the use of technologies to multiply their labors. These changes are impacting work both in the mill and in the office.

An example: At a Plum Creek plywood plant in Columbia Falls, Mt., a computer scanner "sees" flaws in the wood better than the humans who used to do the job, one of many computers in the largely automated plant.

The technology helps the company use more of the log, it helps reduce waste and inefficiency, and it has increased production by 10Vo.

At Snavely Forest Products in Pittsburgh, Pa., the company drives innovation to develop more competitive products, such as its acetylated wood decking, modified through a patented process that helps wood stand up to rain, heat, humidity and cold.

On the other end of the supply chain is Main Street Lumber of Denison, Tx., recognized this year for development of a mobile app called Mobile Visual Pro (MVP) that streamlines its sales process. MVP allows for project bids to be made on the job site with customized specifications, and emailed to both the customer and the company office for distribution. In an industry that is still run primarily with paper bids, the application speeds up sales and also reduces waste from error.

Finding new uses for wood. Innovators are also looking at areas where wood has never been considered, or has fallen out of favor. One surprising example: high rise buildings. In the past, wood has not been used for midrise and high-rise structural applications for reasons of cost, safety and fire resistance. Concrete and steel offered the structural qualities required to construct these types of buildings at a much lower cost than wood. But today, architects and developers are experimenting with the use of wood and wood products as key components.

Among the best-known architects proposing more wood products in building is Canadian Michael Green, whose architectural firm has come up with a cost-effective structural system that utilizes mass timber panels engineered for strength through lamination of multiple layers. It uses a solid wood central elevator and stair core and wood floor slabs. Steel beams in the perimeter provide ductility to address wind and earthquake forces. Concrete is used below grade for the foundation.

A handful of architectural firms are vying to build the tallest wood-based high-rise. Perhaps most notably, the movement received an unexpected boost when Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, a Chicago-based architectural firm known for its design of towers of steel and concrete, including the new One World Trade Center in New York City, signed on to the mass timber structural system and announced plans to build a 42-story residential tower.

Battling forest foes. The four horsemen of the timberland apocalypse may be insects, disease, invasive plants, and urbanization-seemingly intractable foes that each carries a devastating punch.

The pine beetle, which is now often able to live through the winter thanks to milder conditions, has killed 723 million cubic meters of Canadian timber. The gypsy moth (in larval form, a caterpillar) has defoliated over 80 million acres of hardwood trees in the East since 1930.

Diseases. too. can take their toll on forests. Sudden Oak Death, or SOD, is a relatively new but serious threat to American forests, first reported in California in 1995. Since then, it has killed one million oaks. Scientists are