Roseburg Names Tony Ramm Senior VP Of Manufacturing

Roseburg Names Tony Ramm Senior VP Of Manufacturing

Roseburg Names Tony Ramm Senior VP Of Manufacturing

Roseburg is pleased to announce that Tony Ramm has accepted the role of Senior Vice President of Manufacturing, effective April 8, 2024. Ramm will drive an increased emphasis on the sustainable, long-term success of the manufacturing side of Roseburg’s wood products business.

Ramm first joined Roseburg in May 2014 as plant manager at Riddle Plywood and moved through roles of progressive responsibility on the operations side of the business. He was named Vice President of Human Resources in June 2023, and was promoted to Senior Vice President of Human Resources in December 2023.

“Tony’s deep manufacturing experience and operational acumen will be vital as Roseburg shifts focus from the construction and startup phase at our newer plants and capital investment projects to the long-term successful operation of our manufacturing assets,” Roseburg President and CEO Stuart Gray comments. “His past year with human resources adds another important dynamic and will be extremely beneficial as we embrace the future of manufacturing and the rapid pace of evolution in our industry.”

As a result of the restructuring, Jake Elston, former SVP of Operations, has left the company to pursue other opportunities. “Roseburg is sincerely grateful to Jake for his contributions to our manufacturing business. We wish him the best in the next phase of his life and career,” Gray adds.

Roseburg has reinstated the Chief Operations Officer position vacated last year when Gray was named President and CEO of the company. Effective April 8, 2024, the manufacturing, sales and marketing, human resources, and engineering teams will report to the COO.

During the transition, President of Roseburg Resources Scott Folk will serve as interim Chief Operations Officer, while the company conducts an internal and external search for a permanent COO to work closely with operations leaders in tackling Roseburg’s biggest challenges and driving results.

Chief of Staff Cybelle White will provide executive oversight and support to human resources and environmental, health, and safety leaders while the company conducts an internal and external search for a permanent VP of HR. Doug Asano, SVP of Sales and Marketing, will report to the COO, as will Jim Salchenberg, Senior Director of Engineering and Operations Assets.

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Roseburg Names Orozco To Direct Strategic Business

Roseburg Names Orozco To Direct Strategic Business

roseburg names orozco to direct strategic business

Roseburg has annouced that Nadine Orozco has been promoted to Director of Strategic Business Development. She has served as manager of strategic business development since 2022, and has been deeply involved in key company projects, including the recent sale of Roseburg’s Simsboro, La., particleboard plant to Kronospan and the company’s historic $700 million investment in Oregon manufacturing.

“Nadine has shown tremendous growth as a leader in her time at Roseburg. She understands our business, our culture, and our goals,” Roseburg Vice President of Corporate Strategy and External Affairs Eric Geyer says. “She has the knowledge and strategic mindset necessary to succeed in her new role. I am excited to see her continued growth and increased responsibility.”

Orozco will lead execution of Roseburg’s strategic initiatives to drive company growth, diversification, and profitability. She will facilitate internal and external teams to develop, evaluate and oversee projects including acquisitions and partnerships, while providing strategic analysis for the company’s executive team and Board of Directors.

Orozco joined Roseburg in October 2012, after earning her master’s degree in Wood Science and Engineering from Oregon State University. She holds a bachelor of science degree in Business Administration and Management from Northland College. During her time with Roseburg, she has held positions of increasing responsibility within manufacturing operations, sales and marketing, sustainability, corporate compliance, and business development.

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Hoffman Companies Acquires Besse Forest Products Group

Hoffman Companies Acquires Besse Forest Products Group

Hoffman companies acquires besse forest products group

The Hoffmann Family of Companies (HFOC), a Florida-based family-owned private equity firm, has acquired Besse Forest Products Group, the longstanding Michigan-based family-run company with 10 manufacturing facilities, including four sawmills, a lumber drying concentration yard, four veneer mills and a cut-to-size plywood mill.

The transaction adds to HFOC’s vast portfolio, complementing its existing Ferche Millwork operations. With more than 2 million square feet of production facilities and a workforce of more than 1,400 people, the combined strength of Besse and Ferche positions HFOC as a significant player in the wood products manufacturing industry.

Besse Forest Products are located across northern Michigan and Wisconsin. The company was founded in 1966 and has remained 100% family-owned.

“We are excited to partner with Besse as they enter a new chapter under the Hoffmann Family of Companies umbrella,” says Geoff Hoffmann, Co-CEO of HFOC. “With the acquisition of Besse Forest Products Group, we’re not just expanding our footprint but building on a legacy that spans generations.”

Greg Besse, CEO and Owner of Besse Forest Products Group, expressed confidence in the acquisition, stating, “The decision to join forces with the Hoffmann Family of Companies was based on their exceptional brand and reputation as a well-run family business. We believe this partnership will not only modernize our operations but also ensure that our legacy continues to thrive.”

Greg Besse will remain as CEO and his son, Cain Besse, will serve as President.

The Hoffmann Family of Companies (HFOC) encompasses more than 100 national brands, employs 9,000 global employees with businesses in 30 countries and 250 locations. The HF Companies’ verticals include Aviation, Agriculture, Financial Services, Hospitality, Business & Professional Services, Industrial, Manufacturing, Marine, Media & Marketing, Real Estate and Transportation.

Since 1958, Ferche Millwork has provided high quality standard moldings and millwork, while headquartered in Rice, Minn.

 

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Boise Announces New Investments

boise announces new investments

Boise Cascade has announced new investments in Alabama and Louisiana in support of its engineered wood products (EWP) growth strategy.

In Alabama, Boise is adding I-joist production capabilities to its Thorsby EWP mill and converting a plywood layup line to a parallel laminated veneer line at the Chapman plywood facility. The Chapman investment adds important integration into the Boise’s EWP growth plans. In addition, the Chapman plywood facility extended employment opportunities to 50 of the 80 associates affected by the recently announced Chapman lumber operations curtailment.

At the Oakdale, La. facility, major projects planned include the upgrade and redesign of the log utilization center, a new veneer dryer and press, and modification of an existing veneer dryer. These investments are expected to take place over a two-year period.

                “We are looking forward to these major expansions and upgrades to further solidify our market position in EWP,” says Chris Seymour, SVP, Wood Products Manufacturing Operations. “We have great teams in the Southeastern U.S. and are pleased to further invest in our meaningful asset bases in Alabama and Louisiana.”

On a total company basis, Boise’s current estimate of capital expenditures for 2024 is $250 million to $270 million. This range includes the investments in EWP and spending on the previously announced greenfield distribution centers.

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Forest Products Industry Says Goodbye To Walter

Forest Products Industry Says Goodbye To Walter

Forest Products Industry Says Goodbye To Walter

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Panel World March 2024

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-in-Chief, Panel World

 

Walter Jarck, whose career in the forest products industry spanned 65 years and ranged from logging machinery to engineered wood products, died January 3, surrounded by his children, in North Wilkesboro, NC. He was 92.

 

Jarck spent the last two decades of his life trying build a high scale, commercial production TimTek (formerly Scrimber) composite lumber manufacturing facility, and nearly pulled it off; but long before then as a forest engineer he was a pioneer innovator of pulpwood loading and forwarding machinery, and log harvesting and processing machinery.

 

Jarck was born on May 7, 1931 in Queens, New York, and learned a hard work ethic from his immigrant parents. It was when he moved with his mother to the Catskill Mountains of New York that he fell in love with the woodlands.

 

He graduated in 1953 from the New York College of Forestry at Syracuse and entered Naval Officer Candidate School. He became a destroyer officer and ultimately retired from the Naval Reserves as a Captain. He recalled while in the Navy working with ships and mechanical, propulsion, steam and hydraulic systems.

 

Upon leaving the Navy he went to work for Caterpillar Tractor Co. as a logging engineer and spent a year in their sales training program and experienced the welding, mechanical and engine shops and was involved in the development of root rakes. “By the time I left I knew how a scraper was built, how a bulldozer was built, so I was really turned on by that,” Jarck said.

 

In 1958 he moved to the South and went to work as a forest engineer for Bowater, which was building a paper mill in Catawba, SC. “My boss said, ‘we have a six hundred million dollar paper mill being built and we’re going to be relying on the sweat of a few laborers to hand load and to bring wood in. There’s got to be a better way.’”

 

While Jarck was supervising the construction of buildings and wood yards for the new mill, he started looking at ways to mechanize logging equipment, which would alleviate the traditional practice of mills having to stockpile six months of logs in their wood yards to overcome the winter weather.

 

In the early 1960s Jarck led the development of the Go Getter pulpwood forwarder and in the mid 1970s working with Charles Allen the Allen Jarck Harvester for felling pulpwood and processing it into sticks, an early version of today’s cut-to-length machinery.

 

In 1982 Jarck joined Georgia-Pacific as assistant vice president and senior forester. He was involved in policy making and in several acquisitions. He retired in 1996 from Georgia-Pacific as corporate director of forest resources and then taught industrial forestry courses at the University of Georgia for several years.

 

Jarck was far from retired. In 2001 he and partner Geoff Sanderson acquired the world rights to the Scrimber technology from the Australia government interests that invented it in the mid 1970s. Scrimber was produced from small plantation trees to form a reconsolidated wood product with uniform properties comparable to sawn timber.

 

Jarck and Sanderson formed TimTek (they didn’t purchase the Scrimber name) and their newly formed company purchased the pilot plant in Australia and relocated it to the campus of Mississippi State University.

 

They wanted to build a true scale plant that would produce a product up to 48 in. in width, up to 6 in. in thickness and almost any length. TimTek beams, they said, would compete favorably in the large sizes for trusses, garage door headers, joists, rimboards and long-span structural timbers.

 

Jarck wrote: “Our process can best be summarized by crushing the debarked small diameter stems in a scrimming mill, then drying the scrim or mat of fibers, adding adhesives, collating the mats, steam pressing, then cutting to size and finishing. The resource can be softwood or hardwood in the 4-8 in. diameter classes. Resources of this nature are available at delivered prices that are one-fourth or one-fifth the cost of resources purchased in the sawtimber or veneer log categories.”

He also believed the TimTek products would satisfactorily counter the non-wood and steel framing increases in residential construction. “The steel stud manufacturers have somehow convinced the environmental home buyer that their steel product has lower impact on the environment than that of using wood,” Jarck said. “While we know this is false, a new product such as TimTek not only uses fast grown plantation trees, renewable every 10 to 12 years in the South, it is a lower user of energy and is a great carbon sequester.”

Jarck sub-licensed his product and technology to a company in Mississippi that publicly announced it was building a plant, but it never materialized. He thought he was close to another project in the Western U.S. and one in Canada, but they went away as well.

 

Jarck had married his high school sweetheart, Marilyn Matthews, on September 26, 1954, and they were happily married for 66 years. She passed away in 2020. They had five children, Lisa Arney, Nancy Clontz (Ted), Paul Jarck (Vicki), Laura Dennis and Chris Cunningham (Lance). They also had 12 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.

The family wrote upon Jarck’s death: “The words that best describe Walter are strong, determined, talented, and devoted. Walter was a strong leader and 1role model for his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Walter was devoted to God and his family. He was a great man, loved by many, and will be truly missed.”

The family asked that in in lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Wounded Warriors Project.

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