Story by Rich Donnell,
Editor-in-Chief

Panel World magazine, as you may have realized, is published every other month. So its last issue of the year, such as the one in your hand, carries a November dateline; but in reality this issue is put to bed in late September, so when I say let’s review the past year, as I am now saying, I’m referring to late September 2009 to late September 2010.
I will say this, as bad as things have been, that late September 2009 and late September 2010 went a lot smoother than, say, late September 2008. You remember late September 2008 don’t you? The general economy was in a nosedive. Lehman Brothers had just filed for bankruptcy apparently because it couldn’t manage its subprime mortgage holdings. The stock market was collapsing. The building industry, which was already ill, went into a coma.
Since then, through late September 2009 and late September 2010, the building industry has emerged from its coma, though at times it still has difficulty recognizing some of the people in the room, and when it chooses to speak, its words aren’t always intelligible. It still has a lot more bad days than good days.
Here’s what happened during some of those days in the past year:

  • A new business, Peninsula Plywood, decided to start operating the softwood plywood plant in Port Angeles, Wash., which had started up in 1941 under the name, Peninsula Plywood.
  • Composite Panel Assn. took the position that the federal government’s Biomass Crop Assistance Program for renewable energy projects was an unfair subsidy program that could have disastrous consequences on wood-based industries.
  • Murphy Co. geared up the idled Panel Products plywood plant in Rogue River, Ore.
  • Arauco purchased Tafisa.
  • Panel World magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary.
  • Georgia-Pacific acquired the OSB facilities of Grant Forest Products.
  • Duraflake started up a melamine lamination facility in Albany, Oregon, and celebrated 50 years of operation there.
  • Uniboard produced its first MDF panel at its $160 million plant in Moncure, NC, part of which was moved from La Baie, Quebec and refurbished.
  • The second Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo was held in Atlanta, Georgia, featuring such excellent speakers as OSB industry entrepreneur John Godfrey.
  • A bump up in markets during the early part of the year didn’t fool anybody that the recovery had truly begun.
  • Composite Panel Assn. celebrated its 50th year, since its formation as National Particleboard Assn. in 1960.
  • Long-time plywood equipment manufacturing specialist Dick Kerns died at age 74.
  • EPA’s proposed Boiler Maximum Achievable Control Technology rules didn’t sit well with companies still immersed in a recession.
  • The federal government passed into law a national formaldehyde standards act for board emissions that, while extremely strict, should level the playing field with regard to quality control, testing and enforcement.
  • As reported in this issue, Momentive Performance Materials and Hexion merged to form a $7.5 billion resins giant.
  • As also noted in this issue, our friend and former columnist, Professor Al Moslemi, died at age 74.