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A Hatton-Brown Publication

Co-Publisher: David H. Ramsey Co-Publisher: David (DK) Knight Chief Operating Officer: Dianne C. Sullivan Publishing Office Street Address: 225 Hanrick Street Montgomery, AL 36104-3317 Mailing Address: P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery, AL 36102-2268 Telephone: 334.834.1170 FAX: 334.834.4525

Volume 44 • Number 1 • January/February 2019 Founded in 1976 • Our 450th Consecutive Issue

Renew or subscribe on the web: www.timberprocessing.com

Executive Editor David (DK) Knight Editor-in-Chief: Rich Donnell Managing Editor: Dan Shell Senior Associate Editor: David Abbott Associate Editor: Jessica Johnson Associate Editor: Jay Donnell Art Director/Prod. Manager: Cindy Segrest Ad Production Coordinator: Patti Campbell Circulation Director: Rhonda Thomas Online Content Manager: Jacqlyn Kirkland Classified Advertising: Bridget DeVane • 334.699.7837 800.669.5613 • bdevane7@hotmail.com Advertising Sales Representatives: Southern USA Randy Reagor P.O. Box 2268 Montgomery, AL 36102-2268 904.393.7968 • FAX: 334.834.4525 E-mail: reagor@bellsouth.net

Midwest USA, Eastern Canada

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ISSUES

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NEWSFEED

Opportunities Knocked: Red Answered More Sawmill Developments

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PERSON OF THE YEAR

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NEW MILL IN TOWN

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LARGE LOG EFFICIENCY

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MACHINERY ROW

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MAIN EVENTS

Red Emmerson Is 31st Annual Recipient St. Marys Lumber Builds Bigger

Lavern Heideman & Sons Lumber Boilers, Kilns, Forklifts

Bringing In The New Year

COVER: Sierra Pacific’s Red Emmerson is TP’s Person of the Year, but he’s really the person of many decades in the Northwest U.S. Story begins on PAGE 12.

(Dan Shell photo)

John Simmons 32 Foster Cres.

Whitby, Ontario, Canada L1R 1W1 905.666.0258 • FAX: 905.666.0778 E-mail: jsimmons@idirect.com

VISIT OUR WEBSITE: www.timberprocessing.com

Western USA, Western Canada Tim Shaddick 4056 West 10th Avenue Vancouver BC Canada V6L 1Z1 604.910.1826 • FAX: 604.264.1367 E-mail: tootall1@shaw.ca

Member Verified Audit Circulation

Kevin Cook 604.619.1777 E-mail: lordkevincook@gmail.com

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Timber Processing (ISSN 0885-906X, USPS 395-850) is published 10 times annually (January/February and July/August issues are combined) by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc., 225 Hanrick St., Montgomery, AL 36104. Subscription Information—TP is free to qualified owners, operators, managers, purchasing agents, supervisors, foremen and other key personnel at sawmills, pallet plants, chip mills, treating plants, specialty plants, lumber finishing operations, corporate industrial woodlands officials and machinery manufacturers and distributors in the U.S. All non-qualified U.S. Subscriptions are $55 annually: $65 in Canada; $95 (Airmail) in all other countries (U.S. Funds). Single copies, $5 each; special issues, $20 (U.S. funds). Subscription Inquiries— TOLL-FREE: 800-669-5613; Fax 888-611-4525. Go to www.timberprocessing.com and click on the subscribe button to subscribe/renew via the web. All advertisements for Timber Processing magazine are accepted and published by Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. with the understanding that the advertiser and/or advertising agency are authorized to publish the entire contents and subject matter thereof. The advertiser and/or advertising agency will defend, indemnify and hold any claims or lawsuits for libel violations or right of privacy or publicity, plagiarism, copyright or trademark infringement and any other claims or lawsuits that may arise out of publication of such advertisement. Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. neither endorse nor makes any representation or guarantee as to the quality of goods and services advertised in Timber Processing.

Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. reserves the right to reject any advertisement which it deems inappropriate.

Copyright ® 2019. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. Periodicals postage paid at Montgomery, Ala. and at additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A.

Postmaster: Please send address changes to Timber Processing, P.O. Box 2419, Montgomery, Alabama 36102-2419 Other Hatton-Brown publications: Timber Harvesting • Southern Loggin’ Times Wood Bioenergy • Panel World • Power Equipment Trade

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THEISSUES

Dan Shell Managing Editor

PURSUING SELF-RELIANCE 6

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alking with Timber Processing 2019 Person of the Year Red Emmerson and touring Sierra Pacific Industries’ new sawmill in Shelton, Wash. last year, two themes kept popping up: self-reliance and full utilization. Emmerson, age 89, SPI founder and Chairman Emeritus, has ridden the pursuit of both in support of his company’s sawmilling operations and built one of the largest family-owned lumber manufacturing companies ever.

Born roughly six months before the 1929 market crash, Emmerson took hard times and humble beginnings and transformed them into hard work and a desire to build something bigger and better. Sent hundreds of miles away to attend high school south of Spokane, Emmerson remembers he stood out as the new kid from western Oregon with the limited wardrobe and one old sweater.

It’s easy to imagine how such feelings may have lit Emmerson’s desire in a way. It’s human nature, after all, to think: I’ll show them!

Emmerson says when he was in his early teens he already knew he wanted to have his own business and not work for anyone else. (There’ve been lots of business articles written on Red during the years, and in one interview he noted that he’d earned every dollar he’d received since he was eight years old.)

And once he was given an opportunity to get into sawmilling working with his father in northern California, Emmerson’s business efforts ever since have focused on making that mill—and all the others that have followed—as efficient as possible. (And with plenty of timber to feed them.)

To hear Emmerson tell it, his career has just been a matter of following opportunity where it led in pursuit of business growth through self-reliance, manufacturing efficiencies and results that are borne out in the marketplace. “It seemed like the bigger we got the bigger the challenges were, but the bigger challenges don’t bother me any more than the little challenges bother me,” he says.

Such quiet leadership, combined with boundless enthusiasm and personal integrity, is a big reason why a banker would give Red more than three times what his company was worth to buy 500,000 acres of northern California timberland in 1987.

The deal was Emmerson’s biggest to date, and it’s one that’s kept on giving: The land, bought from Santa Fe/Southern Pacific Railroad, has doubled in value, fed SPI mills for 30+ years and still has more timber inventory on it than when Emmerson purchased it. “I still believe in buying land,” he says.

Asked about the critical aspects of running a sawmill, Emmerson says a mill is no stronger than its weakest link, and it’s a constant effort to maintain processes and efficiency. “Everything has to be right, but you know it’s never a perfect situation,” he says with a smile. “You can ruin lumber sawing it, drying it, planing it, lots of ways.”

Emmerson’s influence extends well beyond the mill floor, and his leadership moves are legendary: buying the company back after briefly taking it public in the early ‘70s, embarking on the land acquisition program to feed SPI’s growing mill lineup, helping lead SPI to its expansion into Washington during the past 20 years, making it the largest lumber producer in that state.

Not bad for a kid from western Oregon whom folks said liked to work with his hands and he was really good with numbers. Timber Processing is proud TP to name Red Emmerson its 2019 Person of the Year.

Contact Rich Donnell, ph: 334-834-1170; fax 334-834-4525; e-mail: dan@hattonbrown.com TIMBER PROCESSING

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NEWSFEED WESTERN FP BUYS COLUMBIA VISTA Western Forest Products Inc. announced that a wholly owned subsidiary of Western is acquiring the assets of Columbia Vista Corp. of Vancouver, Wash. and certain related entities for US$30.5 million, including working capital of US$6.7 million.

Columbia Vista produces Douglas fir lumber for Japanese and U.S. markets. It has been in business for more than 60 years. The operations employ 90 and produce 60MMBF annually.

“This acquisition is consistent with our strategy of pursuing margin-focused business opportunities that complement our position in selected markets. Bringing

Western and Columbia Vista together provides Western the opportunity to expand its Douglas fir specialty product offerings, particularly in Japan where our customers have been asking us to source Douglas fir to complement our B.C. hemlock,” comments Don Demens, Western’s President and CEO. Bob Lewis, Columbia Vista owner, will remain with Western in a consulting capacity.

Western has a lumber capacity of 1.1 billion BF from seven sawmills.

WESTERVELT PLANS SECOND SAWMILL

Columbia Vista was the TP cover story in October 2012.

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The Westervelt Co., ending months of speculation, plans to build a sawmill in Thomasville, Ala. The facility, to be located in the North Clarke Industrial Park, will produce

250MMBF of southern yellow pine lumber annually and will take advantage of the Tuscaloosa-based company’s substantial timberland base and existing infrastructure.

The new mill will complement Westervelt’s existing SYP sawmill in Moundville, Ala. Construction is expected to begin in mid-2019, with operations beginning in late 2020.

Westervelt has chosen BID Group as the turnkey supplier.

CEO Brian Luoma says they ran a robust bidding process, which is a main reason it took a while to make the formal announcement of the sawmill.

LUCEDALE POISED FOR PELLET MILL In early January George County and Jackson County in Mississippi each voted to

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NEWSFEED approve incentive packages geared toward Enviva building a wood pellet mill at Lucedale and a shipping terminal at Pascagoula, respectively.

“Although we are still proceeding through the permitting process and will shortly make a final investment decision, I can tell you that we are excited to build on our success in Mississippi by investing in new facilities in George and Jackson counties,” comments Enviva Chairman and CEO John Keppler,.

Enviva operates seven pellet mills with stated production capacity of 3.3 million metric tons and one is starting up this year in Hamlet, NC, which will add another 600,000 metric tons. On top of that, Enviva has announced it will increase production capacity by 400,000 metric tons between its plants in North-

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ampton County, NC and Southampton County, Va. The company ships its pellets to overseas markets and has recently signed off-take contracts with Japanese customers.

Enviva continues to look at other Southern U.S. sites for possible new plant construction.

BLACK PELLETS MILL IS BACK The Zilkha “black” pellets manufacturing plant in Selma, Ala. is attempting a comeback. A new ownership has completed refinancing of nearly $60 million. The mill operation, which started up in 2015, is now called Zilkha Biomass Selma LLC, which is owned by Zilkha Biomass Fuels I LLC, a subsidiary of NextGen Black Pellets LLC,

which is the management buyout group that purchased the operation in late 2016.

The funds will be used to recommission and place the mill back in operation and for capital expenditure projects to produce black pellets as a substitute for coal in power plant operation.

The mill is expected to start commercial operation in the first quarter of 2019. The mill will produce 60,000 metric tons in the first year of operation, 200,000 in the second year, and 240,000 in subsequent years, for export to worldwide markets.

Dixie Pellets actually built the first pellet plant on the site in 2008, producing conventional “white” pellets, but the venture failed.

Houston-based Zilkha Biomass purchased the operation at a bankruptcy auction and started it up with a “steam-ex-

plosion” or “thermal conditioning” process for producing black pellets. Zilka touts its product and process as lower cost than torrefaction.

The plant had primarily procured in-woods fuel chips and some chip mill clean chips, mostly southern yellow pine.

First shipments were sent abroad and a supply agreement was in place, but disagreements with the purchaser soon reportedly arose and markets dissipated.

The mill was idled in early 2017 as the new ownership examined various scenarios, including selling the facility.

But the ownership moved forward and completed a $59.8 million refinancing last September.

The original Zilkha Biomass Energy had planned to build a second manufacturing plant in Monticello, Ark. on an 80 acre site, but the acreage has since

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NEWSFEED been released back to the Monticello Economic Development Commission for other development.

USDA, IDAHO SEEK FOREST HEALTH The state of Idaho and U.S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) entered into an agreement to improve forest health conditions across Idaho that sets an example of interagency collaboration for other states to follow.

Jim Hubbard, USDA Under Secretary for Natural Resources and Environment overseeing the Forest Service, joined Governor C. L. (Butch) Otter and GovernorElect Brad Little in signing the new “Shared Stewardship Agreement” in Boise.

The strategy is called “Toward Shared Stewardship

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Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy.”

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue recently held up Idaho as a prime example of what can be achieved when agencies work together to implement a shared vision of healthy, productive lands that positively contribute to people’s lives.

As part of the new strategy, the participants say they will focus on reduction of fuels and wildfire risk to communities, improvement of forest health and watershed conditions and support markets to sustain and create jobs; and plan together, invest wisely and create real outcomes at a landscape scale across boundaries while respecting all ownerships values.

Over the next few months the state of Idaho and the Forest Service Northern and In-

termountain regions, along with the national forests in Idaho, will identify two pilot landscapes—one in northern Idaho and one in southern Idaho. A landscape-scale approach will be used to evaluate recent and upcoming forest restoration projects, communities at risk, and what can be done to complement the work already planned.

RAYONIER PLANS MILL UPGRADES Rayonier Advanced Materials is updating the primary breakdown line at its La Sarre, Quebec plant with USNR equipment. The company is installing a new small log line that will feature a knuckle turner and extended length infeed with slew, skew and tilt capabilities, PGLR log rotation monitoring and

correction system, canter, sideboard profiler, quad arbor sawbox and vertical shape sawing (VSS) gang system.

The stud mill processes Eastern SPF logs from 3-17 in. diameter, with the line’s maximum operating speed at 600 FPM. The La Sarre mill will also install a multi-track fence as it retools to improve its process.

Close on the heels of the investment in the La Sarre operation, Rayonier ordered a new VSS gang for its mill at Bearn, Quebec, as well as a planer mill multi-track fence for that location. The Bearn mill produces random length lumber.

In 2017 Rayonier A.M., based at Jacksonville, Fla., acquired all of Tembec’s holdings in Canada, U.S. and France. The La Sarre and Bearn mills are among those holdings.

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LIFE MADE OF

TIMBER By Dan Shell

Lumber industry leader and visionary Red Emmerson of Sierra Pacific Industries is Timber Processing’s 2019 Person of the Year.

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ombining a willingness to work with a shrewd ability to follow opportunity and a burning desire to build something bigger and better, Timber Processing 2019 Person of the Year and Sierra Pacific Industries founder and chairman emeritus Red Emmerson’s story touches on eight decades spanning the post World War II era. It’s a remarkable tale, equal parts Horatio Alger and American dream, and a testament to one of industry’s most amazing lumbermen and his leadership, organizational and management abilities.

Emmerson has built—along with many top-notch people and family members, he’s quick to say—one of the largest independent sawmilling operations in the U.S. SPI is the second-largest private lumber manufacturer in the U.S. and the fifth-largest overall, producing more than 2.6 billion BF annually.

Sierra-Pacific’s overall operations include 14 sawmills in California and Washington, and seven of those facilities feature cogeneration operations. (Altogether SPI produces more than 150 MW annually.) Value-added ventures include two millwork and one reman operation,

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plus a major window manufacturing business, Sierra Pacific Windows. The company has two decorative bark and chip plants in California.

The lumber manufacturing and other wood-consuming facilities are fed in large part by the company’s legendary 1.97 million acres of timberland, stretching from central to northern California, and more recent holdings in Washington, where SPI has expanded impressively in the past decade and now operates four sawmills and is the state’s largest lumber producer. The timberland holdings make Emmerson and his family the thirdlargest private landowners in the U.S., after cable industry moguls John Malone and Ted Turner.

Emmerson, who turns 90 in April, continues to come into the office several days a week, and he’s a regular around the mills, whenever a project strikes his interest. Emmerson’s lumber manufacturing and timberlands record and his contributions to industry make him an easy choice as the 31st annual recipient of the TP honor.

One theme that runs throughout Emmerson’s story is self-sufficiency, whether it’s running a clandestine canteen in high school to make extra money or buying a half-million acres to feed SPI mills for decades. It’s also reflected in the extensive use of cogeneration to power SPI’s manufacturing facilities, fab shops that can produce virtually any part or component a sawmill needs in-house and also in the operation of related businesses that complement the primary manufacturing.

Emmerson’s approach reflects complete raw material utilization and value extraction. His son George, SPI President & CEO, who joined the company in 1979 after college, says his father’s strongest attribute in the lumber business is a dedication to getting the full value out of a log

in an efficient and economic manner.

“I can share with you from personal experience, if you are responsible and running a mill for him, you better be getting the best value out of each log in the most efficient manner, or all hell breaks loose,” George says. “It can be humbling, but you learn.”

He adds that some of the biggest lessons he learned from his father are to treat everyone with dignity and respect, “And remember we all put our pants on one leg at a time!”

Within the business organization, George says he also learned from Red that “Once an individual develops your confidence and trust you need to be loyal to them and support them in their efforts to contribute to the organization.”

Red says he and the company have benefited from the people involved over the years. “We’ve been lucky in that we’ve hired a lot of good people, and they’ve had a lot to do with our success.”

The SPI leader says he’s always tried “to be honest with people, keep up with them personally and respect them and reward them well. In return, we expect the same from them.”

Sierra Pacific Industries remains a family-led company. In addition to Red and George, Red’s other son, Mark, is Chairman and Chief Financial Officer. Daughter Carolyn Dietz runs the Sierra Pacific Foundation that was founded in 1979.

Red says he’s truly happy the way things have worked out with his children’s respective roles in the company.

Though both sons worked in and around the mills in their youth, “I didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do when they grew up,” he says.

He made sure both were aware there was an opportunity for them at SPI to take on as much responsibility as they could earn. George began learning the business right out of college. Mark, a

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CPA, worked for Arthur Andersen then joined SPI in 1985. Daughter Carolyn took over the Sierra Pacific Foundation after her mother’s death in 1996. (Red’s wife Ida had been foundation president since its inception.)

The Sierra Pacific Foundation was founded by Red’s father, R.H. “Curly” Emmerson, in 1979. The Foundation has donated more than $17 million, including $7 million in educational scholarships, focusing on dependent children of SPI employees and youth activities and other organizations.

After the tragic wildfires in California last fall, the Sierra Pacific Foundation made an initial commitment of $60,000 (matched by the Hearst Corp.), in addition to matching employee donations, to the Shasta Regional Community Foundation for Carr Fire victims, relief and recovery efforts.

And it’s not just the Foundation: SPI facilities are closely involved with their communities, whether it’s donating 2x4s for school benches in Washington or trucks for a parade in California, for example. The SPI LinkedIn page has dozens of posts showing how SPI operations are helping out and contributing.

SAWMILL APPROACH Emmerson says he’s always been careful not to be the very first mill to try a new machine or technology, but once a system proves itself, he’s quick to make an investment and realize a payoff.

Examples include a large curve-sawing gang order in the mid ’90s, and Emmerson believes SPI has implemented scanning and optimization technology earlier and at more machine centers than many competitors. He doesn’t point to any one lumber technology as a breakthrough as much as a series of cumulative improvements. Automated grading is a current example.

“We’ve been installing one or two a year, and we’re auto grading at almost every mill now,” Emerson says. “It’s always been a matter of payoff, and if it works in one place, then we’ll go ahead and do it throughout the mills.”

Though he believes it may become tougher to set up such deals in the future due to wind and solar power competition, Emmerson says SPI remains committed to cogeneration facilities to power its mills.

Some company executives might look at it differently, but at SPI the cogen operations are in context of supporting the lumber manufacturing, not cogen as a separate business. Again, there’s the beTIMBER PROCESSING

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proud to see him receive recognition of his success in our industry after all these years of hard work, keeping his nose to the grindstone!”

RED’S STORY

Self-reliance is a big part of Red’s approach.

lief in self-reliance: “We’ve always kept the cogen sized to be able to power the mill adequately, with some leeway,” Emmerson says.

“I was a little nervous when we first got into it, but we proceeded with it, had some good engineering and it’s paid off well.”

Emmerson took a close look at buying or establishing a sawmill in the Southeast, but says he has no regrets in not doing so even though the region has its advantages with low log and land costs. “The Canadians have done well there and it probably would go well for us,” he says.

George Emmerson says his father has always been humble and quiet and has never been one to promote himself.

“He’s always put his efforts into growing the company,” he says, adding that Red’s leadership and can-do vision are inspiring.

A prime example, George says, came during the deal of a lifetime, when Red was negotiating for the Santa Fe timberlands in fall 1987, during the time of the Black Tuesday 25% stock crash. “With all the uncertainty he wasn’t deterred, and although he was concerned, his confidence, vision and optimism we could make the acquisition work was unwavering, and his leadership was more than admirable and inspiring.”

Calling his father a living legend and one of the most successful lumbermen in the country, George says, “It makes me 14

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Born in 1929 in Sheridan, Ore., Archie Aldis Emmerson was raised in a devout Seventh-Day Adventist family and spent much of his youth in and around communities just south of Portland in the lower Willamette Valley. His first sawmill job was there, at a relative’s small mill where he pushed logs in a pond and fed the mill when he was in the 8th grade.

Though a solid student, Emmerson was bored with school for the most part and preferred being outside, working with machinery. After a couple of instances of “unruliness” while attending a religious school near Portland, Emmerson’s family decided he would find better influences at a new Adventist academy opening south of Spokane, far from home.

The event was a transformative one in Emmerson’s life and undoubtedly fed his growing belief in hard work and self-reliance and a desire to build something bigger and better for himself. Emmerson thought he stood out as the new kid from Oregon and also felt looked down upon by more well-to-do classmates for his limited wardrobe and one old sweater.

However, where Emmerson truly stood out was as a dedicated and hard worker on the school farm, and his drivers license enabled him to run errands for the school into town. The extra money and access quickly made him a go-to guy on the campus: Emmerson grew his entrepreneurial abilities by developing an after-hours canteen where he sold burgers and Cokes, and he also made low-interest loans to students short on cash.

“It makes you hungrier, makes you want to work harder and get ahead in life,” Emmerson says of his experiences being on his own and away from home at such an early age.

Despite his self-described outsider status, Emmerson was voted class treasurer by his classmates, who had also affectionately begun calling him “Red” for his hair. Alas, a few months before graduation, after a school prank went awry (Red was ratted out as the idea man for another student to pin a condom to a school bulletin board), he was expelled.

Red moved in with the school’s former farm manager’s family and finished high school in nearby Omak, Wash. After graduating in 1948, he agreed to an invitation from his father to move to Arcata, Calif., where the elder Emmerson had op-

erated a small sawmill.

After the mill went under and Red worked multiple jobs at local mills Arcata Timber Products and Precision Lumber Co., learning everything from welding to headrig operation to grading, Curly and Red Emmerson leased their own mill and started up R.H. Emmerson & Son in 1949. Curly headed up the log buying and procurement effort, while Red ran the mill.

The arrangement worked well, and the two built their own sawmill and planer mill in 1951. Red continued his sawmill immersion and learning in earnest, developing his belief in total utilization and building his approach to efficient and profitable lumber manufacturing.

His budding sawmill career was interrupted by a two-year stint in the Marines.

Red was a turret mechanic in a tank battalion, and as one might imagine, found the military a bit lacking: “It was an inefficient operation, and I just did what I was told,” he said in an interview years later.

What was also lacking by then was the R.H. Emmerson & Son mill operation.

Never the most dedicated sawmiller, the elder Emmerson had bought a ranch north of Arcata while Red was in the service, and had begun spending much of his time there. As a result, the mill operation wasn’t running well.

Coming back to California in 1954 after the Marines and spending time on peacekeeping duties in Japan meant big changes for Red Emmerson: In 1955 he married the love of his life, Ida Mitchell, daughter of a mill worker in Eureka, beginning a 41-year marriage that produced sons George and Mark and daughter Carolyn and a lifetime of loving memories.

The other big change was the reduced role for Red’s father at the mill. While he still conferred with his father, Red came back and began running the mill operation and making most decisions himself.

He added a second shift to better leverage capital and cover fixed costs and developed a reputation for asking a lot from his employees but also producing highquality lumber.

Red says at the time the experience pointed up a big difference between him and his father. “I learned quite a bit from my father, and I also learned he never wanted to do much more than make a living,” he says. “We went into business together, but I wanted to do more and he didn’t.”

He says the difference didn’t lead to any particular ill will, but it was acknowledged. “I wanted to get ahead in this world, like a lot of people,” Red says, “and I was willing to work for it.”

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He adds that he’s always been grateful to his father, who had carved out a niche in North Coast sawmilling, and the invitation he had given him right out of high school. “I had the opportunity to do this through my father, and it would have been difficult to get started without him,” Red says.

MAJOR GROWTH By the latter 1950s the company was poised to take advantage of America’s postwar building boom and began growing quickly through a combination of Emmerson’s shrewd acquisitions and investments.

In 1957, Emmerson had purchased the cutting rights to 200MMBF of timber that Georgia-Pacific owned along the Eel River, then made the company’s first timberland purchase soon after: a 2,500 acre tract of old-growth Douglas fir on the edge of the Six Rivers National Forest. In 1961, Emmerson bought another 5,400 acres near Willow Creek The company’s first big acquisition came in 1965, when it bought a northern California plywood plant, particleboard plant and timberland from Weyerhaeuser for $2.8 billion.

In 1969 Emmerson made one of the few missteps in his long and storied career, taking the advice of a joint venture partner, converting R.H. Emmerson & Sons to a public company and renaming it Sierra Pacific Industries. It was the era of the great conglomerates, when widely disparate businesses would find themselves

SPI is a top private lumber producer.

under the same ownership umbrella.

While the move brought in large amounts of capital, Emmerson never was comfortable with the arrangement and especially the reduced emphasis on lumber manufacturing. In a news report later he said it seemed other members of the board were interested in any business except the one that paid the bills.

Indeed, the company eventually came to encompass businesses like pre-hung doors, vinyl molding, property investment and even home building stores. After a shopping center project went sour in 1973, Emmerson had had enough and wanted out. Despite the stagflation economy of the time and a share price 50% lower than the IPO four years earlier, Emmerson didn’t want to be bought out. Instead—and self-reliant as usual—he bought the other shareholders out at a higher share price in order to get his company back, his business reputation enabling him to personally guarantee financing for the deal.

Emmerson reorganized the company as a private venture in 1974, shed the unrelated businesses and got back to his preferred business: lumber manufacturing backed by timberland acquisition.

The mid ’70s also led Emmerson to begin acquiring the company’s first timber assets outside the coastal region along the Sierras in central California, including a major 86,000 acre purchase near Burney in 1976. At the time, extending into the recession of the early ’80s, Sierra Pacific made multiple acquisitions of independent mills and timberland as other operators either closed or chose to get out of the business.

In 1987, Red closed his biggest deal to date, and one that’s kept SPI’s mills in quality timber ever since: the acquisition of 522,000 acres in northern California from Santa Fe/Southern Pacific Railroad.

“At the time, I could see government (Forest Service) timber was going to slow way down, and I felt that in order to keep our mills where they were and to grow, we were going to have to buy more land,” Emmerson says.

The railroad timber deal was a heartstopper. While SPI was a well-run operation and Emmerson already a well-known and successful lumber producer, the acquisition was more than three times what the company itself was worth.

That the $460 million Bank of America loan was oversubscribed during underwriting, and not one bank pulled out despite the deal going down around the time of the October ’87 stock market crash remains a testament to Emmerson’s business reputation and standing in the indusTIMBER PROCESSING

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try. (The deal closed in early ’88.)

“I know we bid a lot for it, probably paid more than we had to,” Emmerson remembers. “I don’t know what the secondhighest bid was and I don’t want to know,” he says with a laugh, “but it all worked out.”

Some believe he had overpaid for the land, but Emmerson proved prescient when additional restrictions were placed on federal timber sales in the late 1980s and the spotted owl was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1991, actions that greatly increased the value of private timberland in the region.

The importance of the deal to the company can’t be overstated: Emmerson notes the land is now worth more than double what he paid for it, the company has been harvesting timber off it more than 30 years—and there’s now more timber standing on the land than when Sierra Pacific bought it.

In the ’90s, special interest groups attacked the industry in California with a series of ballot initiatives designed to hamper forest operations, and Emmerson and SPI were heavily involved in the public relations and political battles to defeat them.

The experience also led Emmerson to

continue buying even more timberland to ensure raw materials: In the eight years after the Santa Fe deal, SPI invested more than $600 million in 400,000 more acres, putting the company over 1 million acres owned.

Interestingly, as other companies noted the same dynamics in California and sought to sell their operations there, Emmerson and Sierra Pacific were in many cases more than ready to acquire facilities and land. Deals big and small with companies such as Georgia-Pacific, Louisiana-Pacific, Bohemia, Willamette Industries, Roseburg Forest Products and others followed as companies left the state and sold out.

Sierra Pacific followed suit in its own way: Maintaining its California holdings and operations but seeking major opportunities elsewhere. It wasn’t a conscious decision to leave, Emmerson says, but a growing realization that business and environmental issues in the state weren’t the best for long-term growth, and any major expansions would likely be sought elsewhere.

That elsewhere turned out to be western Washington, where conversations with large landowner Rayonier around 2000 about better utilizing timber in the

SPI CEO & President George Emmerson: Red’s leadership “admirable, inspiring"

region due to a slow log export market ended up with SPI building a new mill and starting up near Aberdeen in 2002. A new mill in Burlington followed in 2006, and SPI acquired a new mill in Centralia in 2008. The company’s newest mill, at Shelton, Wash. (covered extensively in October 2018 TP), is a dual-line stud mill that produces 100MBF/hr.

The company has gone from no presence there to the largest lumber producer in Washington in less than 20 years, and even with its new mill at Shelton, SPI isn’t standing still. The company is buying land in Washington (54,000 acres in 2015) and still in California (some 30,000-plus acres last year). “I’ll always believe in buying land,” Emmerson says.

Red Emmerson has built a life and organization beyond possibly what his own desire might have imagined years ago, and he’s happy to have his family along for the ride. “The children are part of the ownership and they have good insights and I respect their opinions,” he says.

“I’m not right all the time.”

Emmerson notes that sons Mark and George are well into their own careers.

“They’ve been around for a while, and I respect their opinions too. But I still have a lot of input, and I think I’ve still got some good ideas.”

One would think the guy who built the dozen-mill company with almost 2 million acres still has an idea or two. A lot of people in his family, company and others, like bankers, have done well betting on Red Emmerson and his ideas. TP Much of the early biographic and historic information on Red Emmerson and Sierra Pacific came from the well-researched and written book Scorched Worth by Joel Engel.

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IN WITH

THENEW By David Abbott

Parent company Bingaman & Son Lumber made a significant investment in upgrading and relocating its subsidiary, St. Marys Lumber, to a new, larger site last year.

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ST. MARYS, Pa. amed for the town in which it has operated for more than 30 years, St. Marys Lumber Co., a division of Bingaman and Son Lumber, Inc., started operations in its new location last year.

Since 1984 the medium-sized hardwood mill had been at its original location, on a 10-acre piece near a local industrial park.

The mill’s owners and management team opted to relocate to an 18-acre property that had also been slated as an industrial development park.

“We were the first to build here,” says Bob Shields, the former owner and current operations manager at St. Marys. The park is near a local municipal airport, on

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which the town has hoped to capitalize by bringing in more industry. Across from the mill is a powdered metal company.

This region is known as the powdered metal capital for car parts, blenders, toasters—anything that uses hardened metal.

Originally, the plan had been simply to build a new mill on the old location. The last large renovation there had taken place 22 years earlier, and its machinery had simply outlived its useful life. “We were spending more on maintenance and downtime than made sense,” according to Amy Shields, Bob’s wife who has worked at St. Marys their entire marriage.

“We had gotten some proposals on what new equipment could do, and with interest rates the way they were, it seemed

At top: New primary breakdown is boosting production and efficiency.

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like a good time to do it.”

Chris Bingaman is one of the owners and the son in Bingaman & Son. He explains, “The line we were trying to balance was to build a mill that would not be a monster to feed, without significantly increasing our raw materials cost, but that would get enough production to implement the newest technology so as to increase efficiency and gains in material recovery.”

Bingaman owns two other similarsized mills in the state, and of the three, St. Marys had always been the most profitable, so Bingaman principals decided to upgrade technology here first. “We had the information on our ROI so we felt we knew what we were getting into,” Amy adds.

There had always been problems with drainage at the old location and new construction would have meant redoing many of the utilities. “This site came available and the price was right,” Bob says. “And this is 18 acres instead of 10, so we have more room. It’s not really extra room; we need all of it. We were always cramped over there.”

Bingaman broke ground on the new location in early 2017 and had the new building up in six months. Equipment installation began in August that year, and the new mill fired up production in April 2018.

MILL FLOW St. Marys has one company-owned Western Star log truck and several contracted independent haulers dedicated to hauling in material. Three John Deere

wheel loaders work the log yard , each with its own job: one for incoming logs (the operator scales all incoming logs), one dedicated to keeping the mill fed at the debarker and removing completed lumber from the mill, and one in the veneer and log resale yard. This operator also preps logs for customers and loads trucks and containers.

Normally the mill maintains a log inventory of 400,000-600,000 feet, enough to last about a month on the standard five-day, eight-hour shifts, but due to the wetter than normal weather of recent months, it was down to around 200,000 feet when Timber Processing visited in early December.

At the infeed, a Nicholson r2 ring debarker will take up to a 36 in. butt log.

Logs enter primary breakdown at a Cleereman Model ST62 Lumber Pro double cut band head saw on a Cleereman carriage with Paw Taw John 3D scanning and PLC. The carriage is stationary while the saw moves. The plan is to soon install a resaw, but Amy says they first wanted to see what results would be in terms of ROI on the carriage. “We knew it would explode our volume from 30,000 to 50,000 feet a day,” she elaborates. “With procurement being what it is, we have to make sure there is enough to feed that beast, so since we were pretty confident in our ROI here we went with this Lumber Pro and opted to add a resaw later.”

Although overall production is expected to nearly double at the new facility over the old one once the resaw is in place, Bob echoes Chris Bingaman, stressing that it is less about high productivity and more about yield and efficien-

Amy and Bob Shields

cy. “You make a few gains at each station; you gain some on the debarker, you gain some with the double cut, and at the edger and optimized trimmer,” he explains. “Through the whole process we expect to gain 6-10% in recovery.”

In lieu of the resaw for now, pieces flow from the head saw to a TS Manufacturing three saw lineal edger with USNR’s Smart TriCam lineal sensor and MillExpert optimization. A TS Manufacturing lineshaft trimmer follows, with a Cypress Technologies Grade Master grade mark reading system, which feeds information to a Simply Computing tally system. With no bin sorter, workers pull boards off the chain directly and onto the cart. Everything goes out rough and green from this facility, although Bingaman dries the majority at its other locations, where it also engages in some sec-

New downstream machinery is contributing to enhanced recovery.

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tions, where it also engages in some secondary manufacturing. The St. Marys mill produces mostly 6-16 ft. length lumber, 4⁄4 through 16⁄4.

Residual or oversized pieces go down to a Precision chipper, with sawdust falling out through shaker screens. A misting system by Sawmill MD helps reduce the amount of dust. RP DeLullo Woodbed Inc., a company run by one of Bob’s high school classmates, takes all St. Marys byproducts for paper production, landscape material, agricultural bedding or pellets.

MAINTENANCE A local electrician handles PLC and electrical work, and the mill has a singleman maintenance crew, a full-time employee who was also the saw filer at the old location, which used circle saws and a band resaw. Since St. Marys moved to a band headrig in the new mill and would use significantly more saws, Bingaman opted to contract filing out to a third party. “That is working out,” Amy reports. “There were some logistics to figure out at the beginning, but it is going

Debarker handles 36 in. logs.

smoothly now.” They change saws every six hours, or at least once a day, depending on species being processed. “White oak is harder on saws, as are ash, hard maple and hickory,” Bob says.

The contract filing is working fine for now but Bingaman is open to handling that in-house. “All three sawmills need filing and this location is centrally located, so we have considered setting up a filing room.

Our filer is really good so we have an opportunity in the future to have him train some guys and send saws back and forth among the mills with trucks,” Amy notes.

SHIELDS The original St. Marys Lumber mill started in 1984, but at the time had nothing to do with either the Bingaman or the Shields families. In 1988, brothers Bob and Tom Shields bought the business from the original owner. Bob was 22 then, and Tom was 20. “We didn’t know anything,” Bob says. “When I got out of school in the ’80s it was pretty depressed and there were no jobs to be found. So basically we bought a job.”

Bob had graduated from Lockhaven University with a degree in geography and a minor in geology; he had no job experience with this industry, but he had grown up with friends whose fathers worked in it, and as an avid outdoorsman he was generally aware of what was going on with forestry locally. After college he was living on the east coast, north of New York City. “Coming from here, that’s really not a place for me to be,” Bob laughs. “So I came back and my brother and I bought a mill.”

The original circle saw mill the brothers bought was an 8-10,000 foot a day operation with a dozen employees. Their first major renovation, in 1996, was the installation of a PHL resaw and a new building. “It was about a $1.5 million investment, when the interest rates were 11%,” Amy laughs. “We thought we were crazy.” But the risk paid off, taking production from 8,000 ft. a day to 25,000 ft. a day, where it stayed for the next 22 years until the recent upgrades/rebuild.

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Amy, a graduate accountant from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, married Bob in 1991 and she started working with him in 1992, when their office manager at the time retired. They’ve spent nearly their entire married lives together in the business.

Tom, who recently retired, underwent NHLA (National Hardwood Lumber Assn.) lumber grading school in 1989-1990, along with one other employee who is still at St. Marys. They also now have two others with NHLA grading certification.

ACQUISITION In 2006, the Shields family decided to sell St. Marys to Bingaman & Son, which had been one of their customers for about a decade.

“Things were heading into a global marketplace for wood products,” Amy recalls. “There was a big shift with a lot of mills our size putting in kilns, and then finding that they had to con-

Log intake has taken on a new dimension with the new sawmill capabilities.

tinually feed that monster, and many of them regretted it at first. And there was also the fact that the Southern U.S. furniture markets had gone overseas, so all of a sudden it became a question of how a mill this size survives?”

She continues, “We were considered a midsized mill. There were a lot of mills in our area that were a lot smaller than us and a few that were bigger than us. All of a sudden all those smaller ones disappeared and a lot of the ones our size and larger got swallowed up by larger companies. So we were at a point where we had to figure out how we would move forward when we don’t really have global access here.”

Meanwhile the Bingaman company was trying to figure out how to secure its production with many of its suppliers closing down or being absorbed. “Bingaman is a very family- and employee-oriented company and we had a good rapport with them,” Amy says. “So it started with just a casual conversation and snowballed.”

From Bingaman’s perspective, Chris says that as a customer of St. Marys it was evident there was something special about the operation and its management. “They produced good lumber that we bought, and we could tell they were knowledgeable and really good operators,” he says.

“They operate in a difficult resource area with high-value timber, and they navigate that well. As an outside observer we had thought if they were ever interested in selling, it would be a good acquisition for us.”

The relationship that developed has really been a partnership. “I can’t imagine we would have ever done that with anyone else,” Amy says. “It worked out and honestly they are wonderful people to work for.” Bob adds, “You work with them, not for them.” The transaction kept everyone employed at St. Marys in place, including management.

In addition to keeping them on as managers at St. Marys, in 2011 Bingaman asked Bob and Amy to help supervise another company-owned mill. “It wasn’t 22

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long of watching them operate after we acquired them that we knew we would like to take their management style and carry it over into the other sawmill,” Chris says.

Bob and Amy started spending a few days each week at what was then the only other Bingaman mill, Pine Creek Lumber in Mill Hall, Pa. “They were struggling a little and we helped to turn the ship around a little bit, but it wasn’t us,” Amy stresses.

“The employees there were given the tools to do their job in a better way and that’s how it turned around.”

What Bob and Amy brought to the

table ended up impacting Bingaman & Son even more; the turnaround at the other sawmill resulted in further expansion for the company. “That gave us confidence to invest in a third sawmill when the opportunity came,” Chris says. The Shields couple has also helped supervise this new acquisition as well.

BINGAMAN Bingaman & Son Lumber, Inc. started out making lumber for coal mining companies in the 1930s. Carson Binga-

man and his son Max (Chris’ father) incorporated the company in 1968, headquartered at its main wholesale lumber yard in Kreamer, Pa. There was no manufacturing at the time, only purchasing and reselling of lumber. The company added its first sawmill, the Pine Creek operation, in 1977. It added a satellite drying yard in Clarendon in 1994. St. Marys followed in 2006, and the third mill, WBL Hardwoods in Nicktown, Pa., in 2015.

All combined, Bingaman ships about 50MMBF of lumber and logs and has $70 million in annual sales. All three mills produce about the same amount, 25,000 feet per day. Chris says only 20% of the total output of lumber sold comes from the three sawmills; the rest is bought from other mills.

Today, Max Bingaman and his son Chris are the majority owners, but it is important to note Bingaman is a partial ESOP and employees have a 35% ownership share. “That aligns with our philosophy of the critical role people play when they come to work every day,” Chris says. “My father always says our most important resource is the human resource.”

There are around 240 in all employed

by Bingaman & Son, 23 of them at St. Marys. Bingaman hosted a big celebration for all its employees at the main headquarters in Kreamer in September 2018 to mark the 50th anniversary of the company’s incorporation.

LOGS Bingaman has as many as 10 foresters scattered among the facilities. They buy 20-25MMBF of timber a year among the three locations in the area. “It is a lot of bouncing balls,” Bob admits. “We have procured into New York, south of Pittsburgh and into Ohio and Maryland. But for the most part, each mill goes about 75 miles around itself.” All timber is harvested by independent loggers.

The Bingaman mills sell logs as well as lumber. Each location has a procurement team that focuses on standing timber, either government or private, and one forester who buys logs from other mills and independent loggers. Those logs are marketed to a variety of domestic and international markets.

A number of constantly shifting variables inform whether a given log will be processed in the mill or resold without processing. “We try to differentiate logs that are veneer quality, and those logs you can’t afford to mill,” Bob says. “You have to sell those, so they are stripped off 24

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and sold domestically or around the globe.” Amy adds, “We make that determination by doing log tests at the mills to collect production data and then we compare lumber pricing, with saw cost factored in, to what we can get to sell as a log. And some things we are better off to sell without milling. It’s a tight rope and you have to keep checking the numbers all the time to see when it makes sense to saw it or sell it.”

Bob gives an example: Right now a 4⁄4 ash board, upper grade, might bring 90 cents per foot, but if there is a log customer looking for it, it could be worth maybe $1.20 per foot. It’s hard to justify the cost of putting a saw to it when you can sell it as a log at a higher price than you will get for the lumber. All three mills go through about 8MMBF of logs a year, 6MMBF of which are processed in the mill and 2MMBF sold as logs.

The company has developed internal software systems for tracking. “We are very lucky in that Bingaman has an IT team that includes a former IBM software developer,” Amy says. Bingaman is an FSC company certified at all locations, and St. Marys was actually FSC certified even before the acquisition, to meet requirements for some of its customers.

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MARKETS The mill processes all hardwood species, especially cherry and soft maple, along with red and white oak, ash and some odd poplar or birch in the mix. Production sells to makers of flooring, furniture and stair treads, but the biggest concentration of the business is cabinetry.

Some is sold back to Bingaman for dimension, flooring and glulam.

“We are not under any obligation to sell to the parent company,” Amy explains. “We try to, as best we can, but each division is responsible for its own financial performance. Anything we’re not selling to Bingaman, we sell to companies that are often selling to the same end users as Bingaman.”

Referring to those other mills in the area, Bob notes, “There is a lot of trading back and forth. As competitive as we all are, we are very good friends.”

Currently, management teams at Bingaman corporate as well as at St. Marys Lumber are in the process of undergoing a transition from one generation to the next, or at least preparing for that succession. “We’ll start heading out the door soon and finding people to take our spot,” Amy says. “Bingaman as a whole

Precision chipping station

is doing the same thing. There is a new generation of the Bingaman family and other young talented people who are coming into the company and being groomed to take lead roles.”

Chris adds, “The markets in the last 10 years have been very challenging, but I am excited that we have really talented people in the organization who have continued to come up with new ideas to deal with those challenges. We are planning changes to unleash the energy of the next generation of leaders who have been identified, and 2019 will be a pivotal point in TP those transitions.”

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PRIMARY

BREAK DOWN By Ellen Cools

Lavern Heideman & Sons Lumber invests $17 million to stay up to speed.

“I

EGANVILLE, Ontario t was either just run the other equipment into the ground and walk away, or dive in head first,” says Kris Heideman, vice-president of Lavern Heideman & Sons Lumber, about the company’s recent upgrade.

Heideman and his father, Eddie, president of the company, have invested $17

million in modernizing the mill to boost production and efficiency.

Previously, the site had two primary breakdowns: a bandmill for larger diameter logs and a scragg mill for logs nine inches and under. Now, the company has expanded to accommodate a new large log line, as well as dry kilns and space for their planer mill.

The company is no stranger to upgrades. The family-owned mill, which Heideman’s grandfather, Lavern Heideman, began in 1974, installed a large log circular mill in 1976 and added a scragg mill in 1997.

In 2005, they upgraded the circular mill with a resaw and, in 2014, Heideman acquired Pembroke, Ont.-based International Lumber.

“Buying International Lumber in 2014, that connected us to the distributors,” Heideman says. “Up until then we were just making green rough lumber.”

Now the mill produces white pine spe-

ciality products, drying, dressing and packaging the lumber themselves.

“We’re probably about 30% white pine production at the sawmills,” says Heideman. This goes through the Pembroke operation, and the company also buys white pine from other mills in the area for their speciality products.

Red pine timbers remain their biggest market, with the lumber going up the road for pressure treating at CanWel Pastway. Another 30% of production is hardwood oak and maple, marketed by C.A. Spencer.

Where does their fiber come from?

Red pine is harvested within a 300 km radius, where Heideman manages some of the land, continuing a red pine forest management program Eddie started years ago. Now they harvest with two new 911 Komatsu processors on rubber, one Cat 501 buncher with processing head and two Puma forwarders.

A contractor who works in the Peter-

Vice-President Kris Heideman is leading the charge into new era sawmilling.

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borough and Lindsey, Ont. area also cuts for them.

“We’re still cutting the same,” Eddie says, “and we’ve got another contractor with a bigger buncher and he’s got a processing head.”

Small and large log lines merge onto a two-level alternating lug system, which identifies the source of each lumber piece as it is loaded into a lug.

MILL FLOW The small log breakdown—a TS Manufacturing twin-saw scragg—has not changed. But the original 1976 large log headrig line is gone, and the building is in the process of being torn down. It will be completely gone by spring.

Now there is a new large log line in the same building as the small log line, and a new building has been constructed to house a sorter and stacker.

The new line starts with a new Nicholson R2 debarker that handles logs up to 36 in. The logs then go to a TS Manufacturing double-cut bandmill slant carriage with Autolog carriage optimizer and controls, and then to a TS trimmer line and TS edger.

The Autolog carriage optimizer provides full 3D scanning and determines the opening face. Heideman turned to Autolog for the carriage optimizer after using the manufacturer’s grade tally system and visiting a mill that used the optimizer.

When asked how their carriage optimizer works at the mill, Autolog’s Gilles Gauvin explained that it features multiple laser lines spaced 6 in. apart for a profile reading at 1 in. intervals along the length of the log. Snapshot or continuous scan function modes are available with up to 120 scans per second. Gauvin says the optimizer features the smallest laser line spacing, fits any mechanical configuration and uses True Shape modeling. A user-friendly interface and simplified architecture makes it easy to learn the system.

“We were very impressed how Autolog was willing to develop a cost-effective custom solution that met our very specific requirements,” Heideman says.

Performance and functionality was key, as was customer service.

It is followed by a resaw—the only piece of equipment from the old mill still in use. The line also features a TS threesaw edger. Lumber is trimmed on Canadian-style trimmers.

The two lines merge onto one outfeed through a two-level alternating lug system, which identifies the source of each lumber piece as it is loaded into a lug, and tracks it for species throughout the process.

“For example, we could do red pine on one line and oak on another; they merge together to feed into the ➤ 32

A log moves through the TS Manufacturing double-cut bandmill slant carriage with Autolog carriage optimizer and controls.

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Upgraded mill features new residual handling systems, including a Precision chipper and vibrating screen for chips.

34 ➤ one sorting and stacking line,” Heideman explains.

Additionally, Heideman can set the ratio from mill to mill, as well as change the speed.

“So if we’re sawing maple on the large log line, we’ll probably go on two lugs from the maple line to three lugs from the red pine small log line,” he elaborates.

The lumber goes into a Piche 123-bin j-bar sorter and stacker, which features Logitech software and allows for more production flexibility and labor savings, since manual pulls are now 100% gone.

Complete lumber bins then travel through an unscrambler designed to manage the range of products made at the mill, from small boards to large squares. This includes adjustable riders built into the ladders that can accommodate all sizes. Lumber is stacked using manual sticker placing, completing a straightforward flow.

However, designing the flow was not as simple as it sounds.

“We wrestled with where to go with this sorting line,” Heideman explains.

“We were coming at it one way, doing a double one that wrapped around, and at the end of the day it was FPInnovations who designed the flow.”

The sorter and stacker now sits along the side of the mill, 700 feet long from end to end.

The expanded mill also features all new, well-plumbed residual handling systems, including a Precision chipper and vibrating screen for chips that go to a local Roseburg MDF mill, as well as sawdust that goes to the MDF mill and bio-oil producer Ensyn.

Finally, two new Cathild direct-fired propane kilns handle drying about 4MMBF of high value white pine and some red pine from the sawmills.

They are very efficient, Heideman notes, and include EBI high-efficiency dry kiln duty motors.

Additionally, Cathild, like the other manufacturers of the mill’s equipment, provides remote service if they encounter problems.

Consequently, running fiber and opticable throughout the site was another big part of the investment. “We need 100% reliability,” says Heideman.

“Even within the mills, if our networks go down, the mills go down, because we rely so much on cameras now than we did before.”

CHALLENGES The first task Heideman had to deal with was putting in a new 12.3 km, 44 kV hydro line for power. Now the line 32

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provides enough power for the new mill, as well as future expansion.

Additionally, the company’s Yates planer mill, currently at their facility in Pembroke, Ont., will be installed at the site in Eganville. The foundation is in place for the new planer mill just beside the dry kilns and air-drying yard.

Heideman comments. “Our lumber site is turning into a log yard because all of the lumber is back in a new lumber yard for green lumber. There will also be an air drying lumber yard.”

The company planned to have two

planers in the next three years, but “now that we have a few extra months to catch our breath, we may go with a new planer right away in the new building, and then use our existing planer in another building,” he explains.

The mill is expected to consume 215,000 m3 of roundwood compared to 125,000 m3, coming from both private and crown sources. The mill will produce about 35MMBF. The company will also buy another 8-10 million in lumber, both green and dry.

With all of this new automated ma-

chinery, the company is expecting “significant recovery and yield gains.” In fact, “We’re already doing as much on just the Autolog optimized carriage as what we were doing at the old mill with a carriage and resaw,” says Heideman.

The company can also do more valueadded production and stack lumber for the kilns, thanks to the Piche sorter and stacker.

“It’s gone pretty customer specific on the hardwood side, just like it has on the softwood side,” Heideman explains.

“It’s no longer just shipping customers a green run, it’s pretty customer-specific or kiln-specific, and we can add a lot more value to the supply chain with this setup as opposed to doing it all by hand before.”

This increased efficiency has also impacted Heideman & Sons’ employee profile. All the jobs inside the mill are much more worker friendly and require more skilled trades.

The company has 108 employees on direct payroll, and at least as many fulltime contractors working in the wood supply and lumber supply chain. But the most significant change is the number of shifts the mill can run.

“We’ve always wanted to run the saw lines and planer line day and night—six shifts of people—and we never could. We got to four; sometime we could find five shifts of people. But we could never get enough people to run all three lines because we couldn’t find enough people for lumber piling,” Heideman shares. “So that was always a problem, and now we can run everything day and night.”

In turn, the surrounding community of Eganville has felt the benefits.

“We’re drawing employees from over an hour away, and at least six have bought houses in Eganville because they feel the project provides stability,” he elaborates.

“Just talking to a lot of stores, they’re busier in town. We’ve had a lot of contractors the last year or so. The hotels, the restaurants, they’ve all felt that impact.”

Overall, Heideman and Eddie are very happy with the upgrade, noting that all the equipment has “met or exceeded our expectations.”

Heideman concludes. “People are always amazed when they come to the mill. It’s never what they think it’s TP going to be.”

This article and photos previously appeared in Canadian Forest Industries magazine and appears here with permission and through an alliance between CFI and TP.

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MACHINERYROW

Hurst Boiler Adds Watertube Boiler Line

Hurst Boiler is now manufacturing Engineered Packaged Watertube boilers. This product line extension complements the company’s wetback and dryback Firetube, Biomass, and Hybrid boiler manufacturing capabilities.

“We feel the timing is right to enter the market with a more comprehensive strategy,” states Tommy Hurst, President and CEO. All Hurst watertube boilers will be manufactured in the company’s newly retooled factory on its 50 acre corporate and manufacturing site in Coolidge, Ga. “Before embarking on this decision, we took a strong look at the state of the boiler business. We’ve done extensive work on developing smart processes with technology and manufacturing advances, coupled with equipment and factory investments, to arrive at a cost position that works for our company and our customers. We plan to become a force to be reckoned within the watertube space as well,” Hurst says.

The new Hurst Performance Series Watertube boiler offering is being expanded to meet nearly all commercial and industrial applications ranging from 17,250 to 103,500 lbs./hr (500 to 3000 HP).

Austria’s Mosser Receives Continuous Kiln Austrian company Mosser has received a continuous kiln from Valutec for a sawmill in Wolfpassing. Mosser is a leading producer of glulam. The company has mainly used conventional batch kilns.

“In our decision to choose a kiln producer, the quality of the dried timber was paramount,” says Thomas Harreither, MBA Sawmill Manager at Mosser.

The continuous kiln will be used exclusively for drying timber used for glulam production to a final moisture content of 12%.

The stainless steel designed kiln has an annual drying capacity of 50,000 m3 (21.2MMBF) and uses the Valutec Valmatics control system. It has buffer zones for 20 stacks before and after the kiln itself. Commissioning is planned for April.

The order from Mosser is the 15th continuous kiln delivery by Valutec to Central Europe in the past 10 years.

Tigercat Names Russia Dealer Tigercat announced that EkoNivaTechnika-Holding is now a Tigercat dealer for areas of Western Russia and Siberia.

With headquarters in Detchino, approximately 150 km southeast of Moscow, EkoNivaTechnika-Holding has a regional presence through three operational branches: EkoNiva-Te hnika in the Central region, EkoNiva-Chernozemye in the Central Black Earth region and EkoNivaSibir in the Siberian area.

EkoNiva has 12 service centers each with its own spare parts warehouses, stateof-the-art overhaul depots and field service trucks. The company has more than 550 employees with a great deal of attention paid to training and development.

Pitts Trailers Starts Lowboy Division Pitts Trailers named Barry Freifeld as Director of Sales for Pitts’ new dedicated lowboy division, Pitts Heavy Haul.

Freifeld will oversee growth of the Pitts Heavy Haul product offering and dealer network.

Pitts Heavy Haul manufactures hydraulic removable neck lowboys, fixed neck lowboys, hydraulic folding tail lowboys and construction grade tag-a-long lowboys.

Freifeld served as director of sales for Trail King Industries and worked as a national sales manager for Hermes Abrasives and held sales roles at Henkel AG & Company and at Loctite Corp.

Crown Imperial Solves Handling Since Crown Imperial was established as Crown Products in 1946, the company’s portfolio has included wooden toys, nursery furniture, contract furniture for the government and even ice cream advertising stands. The family run business now specializes in the manufacture of high quality British furniture for kitchens, bedrooms and living areas. It has a large showroom with 6,000 products in Daventry, but its headquarters are in Herne Bay. This is where it has recently overhauled and enhanced handling procedures by bringing in a num38

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MACHINERYROW ber of Combilift models to replace counterbalance and reach trucks that were previously used.

The variety of raw materials and the varying dimensions of finished products that need to be moved around and stored at the 10,000 m² production facility required versatile equipment, and Store Manager Bruce Whiting was also keen to reduce the level of ride-on forklift traffic, particularly in areas where a lot of other personnel are present.

Taking advice from Jon Collett of materials handling consultants Mexmast, he looked at the Combilift range and found the ideal solution in the form of CombiWR4 multidirectional pedestrian stackers and a Combi-CBE4 multidirectional counterbalance design forklift.

Crown Imperial is the first company in the UK to take delivery of the new 4t capacity electric powered Combi-CB. “We wanted a truck with a small footprint that could work in narrow confines, but we also needed enough capacity to cope with our heavier loads,“ Whiting says.

“Electric power was also essential for lower running costs, so we were pleased

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New Combilift material handling units provide versatility.

to hear that Combilift had recently added the CBE4 to its range.”

The CBE4 is used across the site for a wide range of tasks: offloading 6 m long packs of timber, chipboard and MDF and taking them to racking, and handling long profiles and timber doors. It can also attach a tipping bin to the forks, which is used to take chipping waste to the wood burner for recycling (which provides fuel for heating the facility).

The compact size of the truck coupled with its 4-way ability enables it to easily maneuver the tipper between machinery in the main hall without affecting production schedules.

The two Combi-WR4s, which have a capacity of 1,450 kg, tend to work inside, although they are equally at home outside if required. They handle lighter loads such as the long profiles, pallets of components such as drawer runners, as well as the large amount of cardboard that is used for packaging. A major feature of all Combilift’s walk behind trucks is the multi-position tiller arm, which enables push button rotation of the rear wheel parallel to the chassis and back. This offers excellent visibility of the surroundings, the forks and the load, and when working in narrow aisles it enables the operator to stand at the side of the unit rather than the rear,.

With the old reach trucks they had to split orders and keep them in different locations. So it is now much quicker to locate a specific order, and if customers want to delay shipment there is no issue with lack of space.

The units also feature a blue spot safety light, which indicates the direction of travel of the Combi-CB, as well as the Hoppecke trak air rapid charging battery system.

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ATLARGE

Ligna Offers Range Of Attractions The upcoming Ligna, which runs May 27-31, is not just a place for discovering the latest innovations, closing deals and networking. As well as its wealth of exhibits from around the world, the trade show features a large number of special showcases for all areas of the wood processing and woodworking industries.

This year’s show marks the premiere of the LIGNA.FORUM, a presentation forum in Hall 11 that will provide indepth coverage of the key Ligna focus themes as well as topical issues relevant to the secondary processing sector. The latter includes “Processing of Plastics and Composites,” “Smart Surface Treatment” and “Integrated Woodworking—Tailored Solutions” as well as lectures and presentations from science and research. The LIGNA.FORUM will also be the venue for the German Timber Construction Award prize-giving ceremony.

Scientific Research and Education is a long-standing, popular showcase in Hall

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11 where trade schools, polytechnics, technical colleges and universities present their latest R&D findings and projects and provide information on their education and training programs. It has been a fixture at Ligna for many years and complements the show’s plant and machinery exhibits.

Complementing the Scientific Research and Education showcase is the LIGNA.Campus, which features the projects and findings of several research-focused institutions of higher learning. One of the projects on show, the “proto-lab” from Rosenheim University of Applied Sciences, is already attracting great interest. The proto-lab demonstrates the feasibility of an innovative human-machine processing system that can cater not only for high product variability but also greater product complexity. Visitors to the exhibit will learn about key future technologies, including cyber-physical assistance systems, such as collaborative robots, automated guided vehicles and smart worker support technologies.

“Industry 4.0 is just the tip of the ice-

berg,” explains Dr. Andreas Heinzmann from Rosenheim University’s Faculty of Wood Technology and Construction.

“Ever-increasing market pressure to individualize and digitize means production has to be highly flexible. It also requires a complete re-think of production planning and management processes. In our proto-lab, humans, machines, logistics processes and products all communicate and collaborate with each other in a direct, decentralized fashion.”

Hall 11 will also be home to an exhibition of the top entries for the 2019 German Timber Construction Award. The award has Horst Seehofer, Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior, Building and Community, as its official patron.

Blue Wolf Capital Donates $1 Million Blue Wolf Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm, announced that its portfolio company, BW SLC Holdings, LLC, will donate $1 million from the proceeds generated by last

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ATLARGE year’s sale of Suwannee Lumber Company, LLC to Conifex Timber, Inc. The donation will be allocated to local charities in Dixie County over the next five years under the supervision of the Board of Managers of BW SLC Holdings, LLC. The first four donations—of $50,000 each—will be presented to Dixie County’s Anti-Drug Coalition, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Education Foundation, and Dixie County High School’s AVID program.

The first recipients were selected by the Board of Managers of BW SLC Holdings, LLC under the leadership of its Chairman, Frank (Bump) Faircloth, for their valuable work and dedication in Dixie County— one of the least populated and lowest income counties in Florida. The donations are driven by Blue Wolf’s belief that corporate owners have a responsibility to support the local communities where their operations are located.

“Nearly six years ago, Blue Wolf saw an opportunity to invest in Suwannee Lumber Company and improve a business that this community has relied on for over

60 years,” says Adam Blumenthal, Managing Partner, Blue Wolf Capital Partners.

“When we sold the business to Conifex Timber this past year, we knew that it only made sense for us to give back to Dixie County and ensure Suwannee’s success by building a new foundation of skilled and able workers. The Suwannee story is representative of Blue Wolf’s commitment to environmental, social, and governance principles that help create value in our investments. We thank Bump for his partnership in this new effort, and we look forward to working with Dixie County in the years to come.”

“Suwannee Lumber Company has been a part of the soul of Dixie County for years, and I am truly grateful to Blue Wolf and the other owners of BW SLC Holdings, LLC, for giving back to the community that has sustained us all of these years,” says Faircloth, former chairman and CEO of Suwannee Lumber. “When we faced challenges, our friends at Blue Wolf came aboard and gave us the boost we needed to remain a fixture of this community.”

GP Closes Plywood Mill In Georgia Georgia-Pacific reported it is closing its plywood facility in Warm Springs, Ga., impacting 300 employees. The company stated that plywood continues to be challenged by competing products and imports, but is still focused on its eight remaining plywood mills across the U.S. GP started up the Warm Springs plant in 1974.

Call Toll-Free: 1-800-669-5613

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Management Recruiters of Houston Northeast

geo@TopWoodJobs.com www.TopWoodJobs.com (360) 263-3371

Gates Copeland 281-359-7940 • fax 866-253-7032

gcopeland@mrihouston.com • www.mrihouston.com

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The Jobs You Want — The People You Need WWW.SEARCHNA.COM

CONTACT CARL JANSEN AT 541-593-2777 OR Carlj@SearchNA.com

PROFESSIONALSERVICES WORN OR MISALIGNED CARRIAGE RAILS? A Proven Process

Contact Us Office 541.760.5086 Cell 541.760.7173 Fax 971.216.4994 www.acculine-rails.com george@acculine-rails.com

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• Rails straightened & ground in-place at a fraction of the cost of rail replacement • No down time for the mill • Restores carriage rails to optimum sawing efficiency •Precision Laser Alignment • Machining and Grinding • Carriage and Bandmill Alignment 489

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Importers and Distributors of Tropical Hardwood Kiln Sticks “The lowest cost per cycle” GW Industries www.gwi.us.com

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Specializing in confidential career opportunities in the Forest Products industry

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Dennis Krueger 866-771-5040

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CYCLONES NEW BUILD OR REPLACEMENT

Send dimensioned sketch for quick price quote

TREECO, Inc.

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Visit us online: www.timberprocessing.com

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WOOD PRODUCTS marketplace NORTH AMERICA

■ Minnesota

■ Ohio

■ United States

Shoreline Machine Products

19301 St. Clair Ave. Cleveland, OH 44117 800-875-7637 • Fax: 800-875-6866 www.shorelineproducts.com

■ Georgia Beasley Forest Products, Inc.

Manufacturer of Quality, American Made Crane Mat Bolts

P.O. Box 788 Hazlehurst, GA 31539

Stock bolts – 7/8"-9, 1"-8, 1/4"-7 x 47 1/2

beasleyforestproducts.com

Custom Lengths upon request

Manufactures Kiln-Dried 4/4 Red and White Oak, Poplar, Ash and Cypress Contact: Linwood Truitt Phone (912) 253-9000 / Fax: (912) 375-9541 linwood.truitt@beasleyforestproducts.com

Pallet components, X-ties, Timbers and Crane Mats Contact: Ray Turner Phone (912) 253-9001 / Fax: (912) 375-9541 ray.turner@beasleyforestproducts.com

Larry Arth–Sales Contact us for a free quote today!

50 Years In Business

■ North Carolina Cook Brothers Lumber Co., Inc.

■ Tennessee

STACKING STICKS Manufacturer of Appalachian Hardwood Lumber LEONARD COOK, Sales (828) 524-4857 • cell: (828) 342-0997 residential: (828) 369-7740 P.O. Box 699 • Frankin, NC 28744 NATIONAL HARDWOOD LUMBER ASSOCIATION

Next closing: July 5, 2019

■ Kentucky HAROLD WHITE LUMBER, INC. MANUFACTURER OF FINE APPALACHIAN HARDWOODS

(606) 784-7573 • Fax: (606) 784-2624 www.haroldwhitelumber.com Buyers & Wholesalers

Ray White

Domestic & Export Sales rwhite@haroldwhitelumber.com Cell: (606) 462-0318

Green & Kiln Dried, On-Site Export Prep & Loading Complete millworks facility, molding, milling & fingerjoint line

We produce quality 4/4 - 8/4 Appalachian hardwoods • Red Oak, White Oak, Poplar •

Green Lumber: Air Dried, Kiln Dried Timbers & Crossties

• Hickory, Sycamore, Beech, Gum & Elm • Custom Cut Timbers: Long lengths and wide widths

Sales/Service: 336-746-5419

336-746-6177 (Fax) • www.kepleyfrank.com

FOR SALE

AIR-O-FLOW profiled & FLAT sticks available Imported & Domestic DHM Company - Troy, TN 38260 731-538-2722 Fax: 707-982-7689 email: kelvin@kilnsticks.com www.KILNSTICKS.com

WANT TO GET YOUR AD IN OUR NEXT MARKETPLACE? Call or email Melissa McKenzie 334-834-1170 melissa@hattonbrown.com

02/19

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MAINEVENTS FEBRUARY 4-6—Indiana Hardwood Lumbermen’s Assn. Convention & Exposition, Indianapolis Marriott Downtown, Indianapolis, Ind. Call 317-288-0008; visit ihla.org.

20-24—Appalachian Hardwood Manufacturers annual meeting, W Hotel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Call 336-885-8315; visit appalachianhardwood.org.

MARCH 6-7—California Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Kimpton The Sawyer Hotel, Sacramento, Calif. Call 916-444-6592; visit calforests.org.

6-7—Ohio Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Marriott Columbus University Area, Columbus, Ohio. Call 614-497-9580; visit ohioforest.org.

6-8—2019 Southeastern Lumber Manufacturers Assn. Spring Meeting & Expo, Hyatt Regency Savannah, Savannah, Ga. Call 770-631-6701; visit slma.org.

10-12—Western Wood Products Assn. annual meeting, Westin La Paloma, Tucson, Ariz. Call 503-224-3930; visit wwpa.org.

13-15—National Wooden Pallet & Container Assn. Annual Leadership Conference, Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, Calif. Call 703-519-6104; visit palletcentral.com.

20-22—Hardwood Manufacturers Assn. 2019 National Conference & Expo, Hyatt Regency, Savannah, Ga. Call 412-244-0440; visit hmamembers.org.

29-31—Forst Live, Exhibition Center, Offenburg, Germany.

Visit forst-live.de.

APRIL 2-4—Kentucky Forest Industries Assn. annual meeting, Embassy Suites, Lexington, Ky. Call 502-695-3979; visit kfia.org.

3-5—International Wood Products Assn. annual meeting, Loews Ventana Canyon, Tucson, Ariz. Call 703-820-6696; visit iwpawood.org.

23-25—American Forest Resource Council annual meeting, Skamania Lodge, Stevenson, Wash. Call 503-222-9505; visit amforest.org.

30-May 3—Virginia Forestry Assn. annual meeting, Sheraton Norfolk Waterside, Norfolk, Va. Call 804-278-8733; visit vaforestry.org.

MAY 5-7—American Wood Protection Assn. annual meeting, Loews Royal Pacific Resort, Orlando, Fla. Call 205-733-4077; visit awpa.com.

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17-18—Northeastern Forest Products Equipment Expo, Cross Insurance Center, Bangor, Maine. Call 315-369-3078; visit northernlogger.com.

27-31—Ligna: World Fair For The Forestry And Wood Industries, Hannover, Germany. Call +49 511 89-0; fax +49 511 8932626; visit ligna.de.

JUNE 26-28—Forest Products Machinery & Equipment Expo, Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta, Ga. Call 504-443-4464; visit sfpaexpo.com.

Listings are submitted months in advance. Always verify dates and locations with contacts prior to making plans to attend.

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This issue of Timber Processing is brought to you in part by the following companies, which will gladly supply additional information about their products.

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