Georgia-Pacific has changed its operations leadership. Jeff Koeppel, senior vice president of operations, will retire in the first quarter of 2025. A role he has held since 2016, Koeppel’s been a critical part of the transformation of Georgia-Pacific’s manufacturing operations.

Hudson Pope, currently senior vice president for manufacturing at Georgia-Pacific, will assume the senior vice president of operations position with responsibility for all manufacturing segments.

Pope brings nearly 30 years of experience in the pulp and paper industry—beginning his career with Georgia-Pacific as a co-op process engineer for the company’s Crossett, Ark. facility. He has grown his career with Georgia-Pacific and several other organizations, assuming consecutive leadership roles in manufacturing, logistics, and operations. In December 2018, Pope was promoted to Georgia-Pacific’s senior vice president, building products operations. In 2023, his role changed to assume responsibility for the company’s packaging and cellulose operations.

Pope holds a B.S. in chemical engineering, with a minor in pulp and paper technology from Auburn University. An active alum, he serves on the board of directors of the Auburn Pulp & Paper Foundation as the executive committee president.

Koeppel will support Pope in making a smooth transition in the coming months.

German machine and plant manufacturer Dieffenbacher has acquired the Italian family-owned company Pagnoni Impianti S.r.l., headquartered in Aicurzio, about 30 km northeast of Milan. The company will operate under the new name Pagnoni Dieffenbacher S.r.l. The acquisition includes the assets and expertise of the plant manufacturer and four-person team led by Managing Director Michele Pagnoni, the sixth generation of his family to run the long-established company.

Pagnoni Impianti was founded in 1848 by brothers Stefano and Martino Pagnoni as a manufacturer of oil presses and pasta-shaping machines and systems. After World War I, Nicola Pagnoni, grandson of one of the company’s founders, began producing hot-plate presses, particularly for plywood production. Since then, Pagnoni has specialized in producing single- and multi-opening presses and press lines for the production of particleboard, plywood, MDF and hardboard, as well as HPL decorative laminates and short-cycle lines for melamine and phenolic paper coating. 

“Pagnoni fits in perfectly with our values at Dieffenbacher. The company is highly regarded in the industry for its partnership-based approach to doing business and its technically sound and well-engineered machines and systems,” says Dieffenbacher CFO Lukas Langer. 

With the acquisition of the company, Dieffenbacher will focus on existing Pagnoni customers as a first step. “The personal support provided by the familiar Pagnoni contacts will continue. The Pagnoni team will also be supported by our entire global Dieffenbacher service network,” explains Ralf Schmidt, Head of Global Lifetime Service Wood & Recycling at Dieffenbacher.

Dieffenbacher will use its after-sales expertise to maintain and strengthen the support of existing business relationships for service, spare parts supply and modernizations. Since the customer base of Pagnoni and Dieffenbacher largely overlaps, this will produce considerable synergy potential on both sides. 

In the medium to long term, Dieffenbacher will add Pagnoni products to its portfolio. “In particular, the short-cycle, HPL and plywood plants will be a useful addition to our range of services. We will also incorporate know-how in single and multi-opening plants for producing wood-based panels into our product range,” says Stefan Zipf, Head of the Wood Business Unit at Dieffenbacher.

The European Commission is proposing that the new EU Deforestation Regulation be delayed 12 months before implementation to allow international parties additional time to prepare. If approved by the European Parliament and the Council, it would make the law applicable on December 30, 2025 for large companies, June 30, 2026 for “micro and small enterprises.”

The Commission said that it recognized that three months ahead of the intended implementation date, several global partners had repeatedly expressed concerns about their state of preparedness, and the state of preparations amongst stakeholders in Europe is also uneven. 

“The extension proposal in no way puts into question the objectives or the substance of the law, as agreed by the EU co-legislators,” according to the Commission.

The Commission also published the principles of the methodology it will apply to the EUDR benchmarking exercise, serving to classify countries as low, standard, or high risk, and noted that a large majority of countries worldwide will be classified as low risk, allowing more focus where deforestation challenges are more acute. 

The EU Deforestation Regulation aims to ensure that a set of key goods placed on the EU market will no longer contribute to deforestation and forest degradation in the EU and elsewhere in the world, and claims that deforestation and forest degradation are important drivers of climate change and biodiversity loss.

The implementation delay comes not longer after 73 members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to President Joe Biden to appeal the European Union’s deforestation regulations, which they claim will hurt the entire forestry supply chain in the U.S. The legislators called on Biden to request a two-year delay; that that many U.S. producers still lack clarity on specific data requirements, data input systems, and underlying definitions “that will affect the entire U.S. forestry supply line. Without more time for implementation, billions of dollars of trade are at stake. Forest product exports from the U.S. to the EU are valued at over $3.5 billion USD. Without legal certainty that U.S. producers can place products on the EU market according to EUDR compliance requirements, significant trade disruptions will results. The inability to ship to the EU will have cascading negative economic impacts, including devaluing U.S timberlands and U.S. manufacturing job losses. The United States is a global leader in modern sustainable forest management, and we are deeply concerned that well-intentioned regulations from Europe will disincentivize the huge investments U.S. forest owners have made in the long-term health and sustainability of our forest resources.”

The EU has said one of the driving factors behind deforestation is the production of coffee, soy, palm, oil, cocoa, cattle, wood, and rubber. Under the new rules, products made from these commodities must not have come from recently cleared forest lands and must not have contributed to forest degradation. 

A representative of a Southeastern U.S. veneer manufacturer and timberlands owner says one major aspect of the EUDR is that it prohibits the conversion of forestland to agricultural land and places restrictions on certain types of forest-to-forest conversions. Additionally, the regulations are unclear regarding timber from naturally regenerated forests.

“To comply with the EUDR, companies and landowners must conduct rigorous due diligence to trace the origin of goods and prove compliance with strict deforestation-free standards. While the intent is to promote sustainable supply chains, the regulations could have unintended consequences. Although these regulations are European, they directly impact pulp, paper, and forest products industries, as well as landowners. In order to access European markets, Alabama companies will be forced to comply with these stringent regulations, effectively transferring control over land management decisions to the EU. This compliance requirement places an undue burden on landowners, who may be forced to adhere to EU standards or lose the ability to sell their timber and other products.”

Dr. Borjen “BJ” Yeh has been named the 2024 Bronson J. Lewis Award honoree. Now in its 19th year, the award recognizes individuals for their leadership and outstanding contributions to the engineered wood industry. Yeh received the award September 30, at the APA Annual Meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The award honors the late Bronson Lewis, who served as secretary and executive vice president of APA—The Engineered Wood Assn. for 24 years.

With over 34 years at APA, Yeh’s contributions are highly regarded across the industry. Since 2003, he has served as director of APA’s Technical Services Division, representing APA, its members and the industry in over 25 countries.

Thanks to Yeh’s efforts, APA member products are recognized in domestic and international codes and standards for their performance and quality. He played a key role in developing APA Product Reports, an industry-recognized tool that enables building professionals to verify product compliance with national, international and industry standards. This initiative greatly enhanced both the visibility and acceptance of members’ products.

He is a recipient of American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) International’s Award of Merit, the highest award granted by ASTM to an individual member for distinguished service and outstanding participation in ASTM International committee activities. Yeh also received the ASTM’s L.J. Markwardt Award in 2006.

For decades Yeh has represented APA, its members and the industry on numerous boards and committees. He has served as chair of the ASTM D07.02 Subcommittee on Lumber and Engineered Wood Products, chair of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) A369 Technical Committee on Wood-Based Panels, and as the secretariat for ANSI Standards Committees for glulam, structural insulated panels, engineered wood siding, engineered wood rim boards and cross-laminated timber.

He earned his master’s degree at Iowa State University and Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also a registered professional engineer in Washington state and an active member of several technical committees and professional societies in the U.S., Canada and internationally.

“BJ has been a relentless advocate for APA, our members and the entire industry. It is with great pride that we honor him with this year’s Bronson Lewis Award—there is truly no one more deserving,” says APA President Mark Tibbetts. “His dedication, expertise and extraordinary contributions have shaped not only APA but also our entire industry, leaving an indelible legacy that will inspire and endure.”

Officials with Michigan-based Besse Forest Products recently announced the closure of three plants in Wisconsin that will result in more than 130 employees being laid off. The mills affected are Goodman Veneer and Lumber, Goodman, Wis., 48 employees and a sawmill that dates to 1909; Wisconsin Veneer and Plywood, Mattoon, Wis., 42 employees; Birchwood Manufacturing, Rice Lake, Wis., 46 employees.

The move comes after Besse Forest Products was sold to the Florida-based Hoffmann Family of Companies private equity firm in March 2024, and the company seeks to lower costs across its 10 newly acquired production facilities. Officials with Besse Forest Products said the closures were “due to an unprecedented industry downturn.”