Editor’s Note
Battling Through Business Adversity by Dan Shell
The end of December ’09 is as good a time as any to look back 128 years to December 1881—when the first issue of Southern Lumberman rolled off the presses in Lebanon, Tenn., and when, despite claiming to be much more “at home with line and stick than with pencil, paper and press,” the inimitable A.E. Baird wrote in his “Salutatory” opening Southern Lumberman column that he’d become convinced “a reliable journal devoted to the lumber interest of (the South) is a necessity.”
The front page of the fledgling publication featured an overview of the St. Louis lumber trade, a slam against stone buildings and why they’re often damp, an announcement of a new lumber preservative featuring potash carbonate, saltpeter and salt—and a scientific explanation of dying from worry (as opposed to overwork, which couldn’t be bad for you in the 1880s) that says worrying somehow disrupts our natural nerve impulses.
Feature
Q&A with Debbie Brady
I grew up on a little farm in Zebulon, Ga. We did have timber on the farm, and one of my most enduring childhood play areas was a big sawdust pile out back from where a portable sawmill had set when they cut some timber off the land, and they left a giant sawdust pile that was a great place to play when I was a kid. So I had an early exposure to sawdust. I also had a grandfather who drove a mule team, logging in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and he had some great stories. But I didn’t know I was destined for the forest products industry.
Working in marketing communications for Osmose was sort of my entrée into the industry, but I had left Osmose and worked for a very short while in another job before I heard that SLMA was looking to fill a communications position in summer ’93, and I came on board in August, back when SLMA was in Forest Park. I came in to do communications, and it kind of morphed into doing government relations work pretty quickly. A key requirement here
The Bogalusa Story
Charles Waterhouse Goodyear was 56 and Frank Henry Goodyear was 52 when they invested $9 million dollars in their $15 million venture in Louisiana and Mississippi. Earnings accumulated from lumber and coal enterprises in Pennsylvania provided the necessary funds.
Another $3 million of capital stock was subscribed by the Hamlins and the Crarys, Pennsylvania capitalists, and by Charles I. James, scion of an aristocratic Maryland family.
Sawdust & Shavings
Industry Developments
International Paper plans to close its paper mill and associated operations in Franklin, Va., and its containerboard mills in Pineville, La., and Albany, Ore. The company also announced it would permanently shut down the previously idled No. 3 machine at its Valliant, Okla., containerboard mill. The Valliant mill’s other two machines will continue to operate. These permanent shutdowns will reduce the company’s North American paper and board capacity by 2.1 million tons.
“We recognize these are very difficult decisions affecting our employees, their families and the communities surrounding these mills,” says Chairman and CEO John Faraci. “We have concluded that we have excess capacity in our North American paper and packaging businesses, and these decisions will better match our supply with our expected customer demand.”