History & Innovation: Oregon’s Timber Industry

The timber industry has been a cornerstone of the Pacific Northwest economy since the 1880’s. With the development of rail lines to support the California gold rush in the 1870s and 1880s, the forested valleys of the western Cascades and the ponderosa pines of eastern Oregon became centers of lumber production. These days of timber past might evoke imagery of loggers standing next to giant fallen trees, large two-men saws or giant bundles of logs being floated down a river. From humble beginnings the timber industry flourished in the Pacific Northwest and plays a key role today in our modern economy. We asked two local members of the timber industry to give us an inside view. We talked with Brian Wells, Director of Marketing at Rosboro and Charley Coury, the President of 9Wood.

Then and Now

Innovation has always been a driving factor in the timber industry and still moves it forward today, but a lot has changed since “the days of Paul Bunyan.” Innovation in the timber industry once meant moving from water-powered mills to steam-powered. It meant finding new and more efficient ways to move logs from one location to another. But as technology and demands change, what role does timber play in the future’s economy? Here’s what Brian from Rosboro had to say:

“Most wood products are used in residential construction, and America’s need for housing continues to grow. As public demand continues its shift towards sustainable, environmentally friendly products, wood is the ideal solution. Wood products are the only truly renewable building material, and our working forests and the products produced from them sequester significant amounts of carbon.  In Lane County alone, the forests we grow and the products we produce from them capture and lock away enough carbon to offset 255,000 cars each year.  Wood products and green building are synonymous. Because of these facts, we are experiencing a renaissance where wood is again seen as the preferred building material for larger projects such as urban mid-rise structures. Building codes have recently been updated to allow wood construction in larger and taller buildings. Known as “Mass Timber”, this trend is fueling a wave of innovation and growth in the use of wood to create the places where people live, work, and recreate.”

Charley from 9Wood sees two trends that seem promising for wood products: “1. Sustainability: The sustainable nature of wood. Well managed forests and the wood that is responsibly harvested from them, is wonderfully sustainable. They sequester CO2 and cool the world’s climate. 2. Biophilia (friendly to nature): As high-tech virtual reality accelerates, human beings have a greater need for counter-balancing high-touch, tactical reality. That Microsoft and Starbucks grew together is not a coincidence. Here too, wood is a wonderful biophilic product.”

Oregon is the Core

Oregon has been the epicenter the Pacific Northwest timber activity and Springfield is no exception. We wanted to know, why have local timber companies chosen to make Springfield home? “Rosboro opened their doors in Springfield in 1939, back when it was just a tiny little mill town. Rosboro has been an integral part of this community for 80 years now and have employed generations of hardworking Springfielders. We are proud to call Springfield home and are thrilled to see the recent growth that is making our city such an exciting and vibrant community,” Brian told us.

“Springfield is a business friendly city. They understand that to improve the quality of life of community members, you also need to improve their economic welfare as well. The two walk together.”

Charley Coury – 9Wood

Making Their Mark

Individual companies are always innovating to finding their unique space within the industry. We wanted to know what makes Rosboro and 9Wood unique within the Timber Industry. Brian told us:  

“Rosboro operates an integrated manufacturing process where we turn second and third-growth logs into finished engineered beams.  By controlling the whole process, we can optimize the use of wood fiber and maximize recovery.  We use virtually 100% of every log either in our primary products or as a resource for secondary products”

And Charley let us know that 9Wood had adopted two unconventional business methodologies:

 “The Theory of Constraints as an operating model and Stratified Systems Theory (Requisite Organization) as a people-empowering model. These two business philosophies appear to make us unique. (Though we prefer think of them as ‘uncommon common sense’.)  These two theories have allowed 9Wood to create better flow, generating a strong value-proposition to our customers: unprecedented On-Time In Full (OTIF) Design-To-Order projects. And we offer the construction industry’s only on-time guarantee.  We’ve achieved this with a group of remarkable people here in Springfield, offering our employees transparency into their accountabilities, their compensation and the company’s finances.”

Innovation is a Team Effort

Be it a logging a steep hillside, working a mill- or moving the entire industry forward, teamwork is fundamental. Moving an industry forward isn’t an easy task, but both Rosboro and 9Wood do what they can to make innovation a driving factor in what they do. Rosboro creates innovative products:

“Rosboro is North America’s largest producer of glulam beams, and we work with architects, engineers, builders, and developers to promote the use of wood as a construction material throughout the Western U.S.  Engineered wood products like glulam are key to solving our nation’s housing shortage.   These products are optimized for strength, easy to build with, and provide the industry with an environmentally friendly, renewable building material.”

And 9Wood places an innovative focus on sustainability:

“Sustainability is an important driver for the future of Forest Products. Because architecture, the ‘queen of the arts’, has a vested interest in sustainable construction and energy consumption, 9Wood finds itself with aware and engaged clients. We are able to supply, and therefore promote, well managed forestry. We currently are certified as a Chain of Custody manufacturer for the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Programme for the Endorsement of Certified Forestry (PEFC) programs.”

Future Generations of Loggers

All industries face unique challenges in today’s economy and the timber industry has a few of their own. Labor seems to be at the forefront of the timber industry’s mind, when it comes to future challenges.

Charley puts it, “Students don’t think that manufacturing can be an exciting field. Attracting students is a challenge. High Schools have for the past thirty years focused on college preparation and left technical education to whither. Fortunately, there is a growing awareness that this social experiment hasn’t served students, employers or society very well.”

And Brian voices similar feelings:  

“Availability of appropriate labor is a critical challenge for our industry. Although we provide family-wage jobs with outstanding benefits, it can be difficult to find people with the right skills and work ethic. This is driven by multiple factors, some unique to Oregon.”

To wrap up this look at the timber industry and the mark it’s left on Springfield, I want to leave you with a quote from Brian from Rosboro that I feel is a good summary of the subject and the bright future the timber industry has in Oregon:

“Oregon is the #1 lumber producing state in the U.S. and should be able to maintain that position of leadership long into the future. 58,000 Oregonians work in the industry, all making a living wage well above the state’s average and there are more trees in Oregon today than there were 100 years ago.”

A big thank you to Brian Wells with Rosboro and Charley Courey from 9Wood. For further reading on the history of the timber industry in the Pacific Northwest, see the Oregon Encyclopedia article on Timber Industry.