PELICE Was Full Of Fleeting Moments

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-In-Chief

What do Arauco, Boise Cascade, Canoe Forest Products, CIPA Lumber, Columbia Forest Products, Georgia-Pacific, Hood Industries, Huber Engineered Woods, Hunt Forest Products, Langdale, Louisiana-Pacific, Medite Smartply, Rayonier, Roseburg, RoyOMartin, Scotch Plywood, SmartLam, States Industries, Timber Products Co., TimberHP, Tolko Industries, West Fraser, Weyerhaeuser and Winston Plywood & Veneer have in common?

For one, obviously, they produce wood-based products. Two, they had management and supervisory personnel attend the Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo (PELICE), held in mid-April in Atlanta.

I was fortunate to be able to talk with many personnel from these companies, and some also gave presentations during the event. But one of the unfortunate circumstances of being the co-chairman of PELICE is that my conversations are always brief, as I’m called away to check on an audiovisual issue in any of the four meeting rooms PELICE had going at one time or another. Though I must say, that given the number of rooms and number of speakers, the Pinnacle Live audiovisual team did an excellent job, and anything that fell through the cracks was probably on me. Or perhaps I was paged out of a conversation to check on the seating setup in a certain room, and so forth. But again I must say that our Panel World team on site in collaboration with the Omni and Shepherd personnel working the show stayed ahead of any serious pitfalls.

And so as the days pass since the completion of the show, my recollection sharpens and these brief conversations with company personnel come back to me. For example I woke up in the middle of the night chuckling over a conversation with Michael Taylor of States Industries about the not-especially environmentally friendly alder peeling lathe that States once operated through its subsidiary, H.R. Jones Veneer, in Grand Ronde, Ore. I visited it in 1987. My wife heard me chuckling next to her, and when I told her what it was about, she rolled her eyes.

I hope I told every one of these producer personnel that I appreciated their attendance and participation, and for combing the exhibitor aisles, but if I missed any, I’m telling you now. Thank you.

And while I’m thanking everybody, here’s a thank you to the 94 exhibitor companies that set up in the Grand Ballroom North. These companies make a serious commitment to an event that basically lasts a day and half.

Let’s face it. There’s no golf at PELICE, no play time around the pool. You can call it a “working” meeting, though there is plenty of fun to be had.

When it was all said and done, the messages that I heard from these producer companies is to stay focused on what you do best but also recognize the building trends, to modernize your facilities but to never take your capital spending for granted, and to build relationships not only with your customers but also with your community. They are simple messages that sometimes get lost in the shuffle.

Tenth PELICE Takes Shape

Article by Rich Donnell, Editor-In-Chief, Panel WorldThe Panel & Engineered Lumber

International Conference & Expo, better known as PELICE, celebrates its 10th event April 16-17 at the Omni Atlanta Hotel at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta. Given that PELICE is held every other year, this means we were all 20 years younger when the first one was held in 2008 at the same location. Does it also mean we are now 20 years the wiser?

You could say that one of the reasons behind the original formation of PELICE was to offer people in the industry an opportunity to become a little wiser, through a combination of project-oriented presentations provided by mill producers and technology suppliers, complemented by small exhibits in the Grand Ballroom North. Another course PELICE has never strayed from is its appeal to both the structural and non-structural wood products sectors. Some years have obviously leaned heavier one way or the other, depending on which way the wind was blowing, and the organizers have always let those winds guide them to the planning of the next one.

PELICE could not have persevered without the numerous presentations delivered by representatives in the vendor community, but the headline acts have always been the keynote talks from executives and managers of mill producer companies. Do you recognize any of these names?

Fito Salman, Mike Rehwinkel, Lynn Michaelis, Darrell Keeling, John Godfrey, Daniel Cromie, Brian Luoma, John Murphy Sr., Scott Weatherford, Curt Stevens, Grady Mulbery, Joe Andrews, Kelly Shotbolt, Jonathan Martin, Steve Swanson, Kurt Liebich, Brian Carlson, Luis Tejado, Roy O. Martin III, Jim Salchenberg, Erik Christensen, Norm Voss, Ashlee Cribb, Steve Carroll, Mark Lindquist, Luciano Tiburzi, Terry Secrest, Jerry Uhland, Scott Poole, Jake Elston, Wedig Graf Grote, Johannes Eder, Doug Pauze, Stuart Gray, Matthew O’Malia, Nick Milestone. Many of them are still going strong.

The first keynote talk delivered at PELICE in 2008 was by a representative of Georgia-Pacific, so there’s a certain symmetry that this, the 10th PELICE, will lead off with a presentation by David Neal, executive vice president of Building Products at Georgia-Pacific.

Hey, but there’s more in this issue of Panel World than the PELICE preview. The cover story is on Richply, the longtime plywood producer in British Columbia, and always a unique company in many ways, but especially in its ownership structure.

And there’s tons of news, which always seems to happen as soft markets turn into strong markets. So enjoy this issue, and we hope you come to Atlanta to enjoy the show. pelice-expo.com 

Producers Shuffled Through 2025

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

Before we fully dive into the new year, let’s take one more look back at some of the developments as reported in Panel World during 2025:

• Weyerhaeuser announced its plan to invest $500 million to build a new TimberStrand engineered wood product facility near Monticello, Ark., complementing its existing TimberStrand plant in Kenora, Ontario.

• The European Union Deforestation Regulation, designed to fight climate change and biodiversity loss through intense accountability and recordkeeping of timber harvesting and forest products chain of custody, was delayed, twice.

• Georgia-Pacific named its former president of gypsum operations, David Neal, as executive vice president of Building Products.

• Buddy Douglas retired from Alabama-based Scotch Plywood after more than 30 years with the company and providing crucial input and leadership.

• SmartLam continued the implementation of its new glulam operation at its mass timber facility in Dothan, Ala.

• U.S. Forest Service, at the order of President Trump, announced its intention to gain 25% more timber sales in national forests.

• Huber Engineered Woods an- nounced Kirk Blanchette as the new president, succeeding Brian Carlson.

• TimberHP announced it entered into a bankruptcy reorganization and expected business to prosper at its new wood insulation board facility in Madison, Maine.

• Homanit held a groundbreaking for its new MDF/HDF factory in Alcolu, SC, nearly 25 years since it started up a MDF plant in Mt. Gilead, NC, which it later sold.

• GP closed its plywood mill in Emporia, Va.

• Many U.S. producers sent personnel to the biennial Ligna show in Hannover, Germany.

• Swiss Krono purchased the Collins Pine particleboard and engineered wood siding facility in Klamath Falls, Ore.

• Boise Cascade named Rob Johnson as Senior Vice President of Manufacturing for the Wood Products division.

• GP announced it is investing $191 million USD in its OSB mill in Englehart, Ontario for a new log processing system and other storage enhancements.

• Potlatch-Deltic and Rayonier announced their merger, which will operate under a new name to be announced early in 2026.

• Roseburg ceased operations at its Dillard, Ore. hardwood plywood facility, exiting the hardwood plywood market.

• RoyOMartin announced that COO Scott Poole is succeeding Roy O Martin III as CEO, marking the first non-Martin family member to lead the more than a century old organization.

A Good Time To Have A Good Time

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

You have to give APA—The Engineered Wood Assn. a lot of credit. They know how to host a party in luxurious locations, such as the recent annual meeting in Phoenix, Ariz. at the Sheraton Grand at Wild Horse Pass. What a name!

It makes a lot of sense. Even when markets are soft—as everybody was talking about—how disheartened can you re- ally feel, when you’re about to play 18 holes at the beautiful Whirlwind Golf Club, play a little pickle ball, do some cripple coot shooting, or, as in my case, hike the 2.5 mile interpretive trail along the Gila River, which was sort of spooky with the ghosts of Native Americans who had lived and camped there running around everywhere. The coolest sign on the trail I read was the one that said at least 45,000 California Gold-Rushers had passed this way heading West.

And then of course there was the nearby Gila River Casino, which I didn’t frequent and out of which I did not hear any stories of any APA annual meeting participants striking it rich, or losing everything. But I could be wrong.

The receptions and food functions and exhibit sessions were all very good, and the 400 or so people in attendance didn’t skip any of them.

As usual, the event hosted a Monday morning general session, and—given those soft markets again—the mood was pretty much can we get through the discussions about the soft markets and head back outside?

Outgoing APA Chairman Doug Asano, who is senior VP, Sales & Marketing at Roseburg, moderated a panel session that included James Finucane, senior economist and VP at Swiss Re; Doug Duncan, retired chief economist at Fannie Mae; and Kevin Walsh, associate professor and director of the master of engineering program at Notre Dame.

Finucane, speaking on “Insurance and Resilience,” said a couple of things that stood out: In 2024 U.S. insurers paid $150 billion in property claims, accounting for 10% of private construction spending. And major insurers have increased rates while pulling back from higher-risk properties, resulting in areas where the government-backed plans are now the only option for many consumers.

Economist Duncan noted there were 27 separate billion-dollar weather and climate disasters that impacted the U.S. in 2024. He cited some fairly obvious points about building resilient homes, such as assessing materials properties and performance; understanding construction and supply side cost considerations; analyzing insurance and demand side risk factors; and evaluating house pricing relative to resilience features and affordability.

Walsh got into the weeds a little bit on the four elements of risk—hazard, exposure, vulnerability and consequence, and actuarial catastrophe modeling, and noted that in 2022 there was roughly $200 billion of global damage costs from natural disasters. Basically he said we should continue to invest in post-disaster structural and analytical evaluations and improve the “fragility curve.”

Also during the general session, APA awarded the Bronson J. Lewis Award to Jim Enright, he most recently the president and CEO of PWT (Pacific Woodtech), but with a career that spanned through several great wood products companies and included substantial work as an APA trustee and board member.

And back to the playgrounds we went.