Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher celebrated his seventieth birthday on December 20, 2021. Until his withdrawal from the day-to-day business on July 1, 2019, the entrepreneur was active for more than 40 years in the Eppingen-based family business Dieffenbacher GMBH Maschinen- und Anlagenbau, which he led as CEO beginning in 1985. As a member of the Board of Advisors and in various other capacities, Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher remains closely associated with the company.

After completing his studies in business administration at the University of Saarbrücken, Dieffenbacher gained his first professional experience at the machine manufacturer Pathex in Toronto, Canada. In 1979 he returned to Germany and took over the commercial management of the family business run by his father Gerhard Dieffenbacher and his father’s cousin Albert Dieffenbacher. Six years later, Dieffenbacher followed in his father’s footsteps as a member of the Management Board.

“Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher shaped the company for decades with his landmark decision in 1989 to develop the continuous wood-based panel press,” recalls CFO Volker Kitzelmann, who joined the Dieffenbacher Management Board in 2016 together with Wolf-Gerd’s son Christian.

Internationalization and the strengthening of the company’s complete plant competence highlighted Dieffenbacher’s work. His efforts to build the company’s proficiency included setting up the automation business unit and founding an external Board of Advisors. Meanwhile, he laid the foundation for new foreign subsidiaries in the U.S., Malaysia, India, Russia, China and elsewhere and production sites in Canada, the Czech Republic and China. Additionally, he led the acquisition and integration of several competitors, including Schenkmann-Piel, Schenck, Maier, Metso and SWPM, transforming the company from a nationally oriented machine manufacturer to a globally focused and world-leading plant manufacturer.

The diversification of the company also bears Dieffenbacher’s signature. The Dieffenbacher forming business unit, which began developing and selling presses and complete plants for metal forming in the 1950s, expanded its portfolio in the 1980s to include plants for the production of glass- and carbon fiber-reinforced composite components. Beginning in 2016, he drove the expansion of the new recycling business unit, which became the company’s third mainstay and a separate business unit in 2019. Today, Dieffenbacher offers wood recycling plants for the wood-based panels industry and solutions for the production of alternative fuels such as biogas or pellets.

“Beyond all these milestones and his entrepreneurial talent, Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher’s leadership skills have always impressed me. His way of leading, motivating and inspiring people became my role model,” says Kitzelmann. “Fulfilling his social and societal responsibility by training young people is just as close to Wolf-Gerd Dieffenbacher’s heart as the well-being of his family, his employees and the company itself.”

In times of great change, Dieffenbacher helped develop the pure press manufacturer into an internationally leading supplier of complete plants for the wood-based panels, composites, metal and recycling industries. During this period, the company’s turnover increased from 36 million euros to more than 400 million euros.

Dieffenbacher’s principal wishes on his 70th birthday are for good health and remaining available to his company as a strategic advisor for as long as possible. He considers among his greatest accomplishments leaving the company with the strong management team of his son Christian Dieffenbacher as CEO and his fellow members of the Management Board, CFO Volker Kitzelmann and CTO Lothar Fischer.

Arauco is conducting an Environmental Impact Assessment as the first step toward evaluating the viability of a new $200 million MDF production line in Zitácuaro, Michoacán, Mexico. If the project proceeds, subject to the approval of local and state authorities, production is expected to start during 2024. It would double the company’s MDF capacity in Mexico.

“We are investing in Mexico to meet the growing demand in the construction and furniture industries,” remarks Pablo Franzini, president of Arauco North America. “This is a demonstration of our commitment to the market and will ensure we continue to develop and maintain successful relationships with our commercial partners.”

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An oriented strandboard plant in Allendale, SC will now have its third ownership since starting up in 2006. West Fraser Timber Co. Ltd. is purchasing the facility from Georgia-Pacific for $280 million. The Allendale facility has been idle since late 2019 when GP shut it down citing market conditions. The plant has an estimated annual production capacity of 760MMSF (3/8 in. basis).

West Fraser intends to invest $70 million to upgrade and optimize the facility in preparation for a restart in nine months. The mill is expected to employ 135. West Fraser states the mill will be one of the lowest cost mills in the company’s OSB portfolio after the optimization is completed and the mill has ramped up to full production, a process that it says typically takes 18-24 months after restart.

In 2005 Ontario-based Grant Forest Products announced it would invest $400 million in building two OSB mills in South Carolina, one in Allendale and the other in Alcolu in Clarendon County. When the U.S. economy went into a recession Grant sold the two OSB plants to Georgia-Pacific in 2010. In 2019 GP idled the Allendale OSB facility along with a sawmill in South Carolina.

Early this year West Fraser entered the OSB arena when it completed the purchase of Norbord Inc., the world’s largest OSB producer, for $3.1 billion. Norbord operated 15 OSB mills in the U.S., Europe and Canada. West Fraser was known primarily as a sawmill company, while operating a handful of non-OSB panel facilities.

GP continues to own five OSB plants in North America.

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Industry stakeholders of all types worked to supply materials for the recently opened ICCU Basketball Arena at the University of Idaho in Moscow. The 4,000 seat facility, which opened in October 2021, incorporates several innovative mass timber elements across some of the longest spans in the country. Designers and engineers were able to source many of the structural wood products and materials to make them—including cross-laminated timber (CLT), dowel-laminated timber (DLT), glulam, plywood, and cedar siding—from local suppliers and producers.

Some of the timber used was specifically harvested from the university’s experimental forest. Associated Loggers Council-Idaho board member Mark Swanson, of Swanson Logging in Lewiston, was on hand for the grand opening. Aaron Walter Logging, Frederickson Logging, Jack Buell Trucking and other contractors also participated in the effort.

Local manufacturers that supplied wood products included Boise Cascade, PotlatchDeltic, QB Corp., Idaho Forestry Group and Tri-Pro Cedar Products. The structural engineer of record was StructureCraft, which fabricated the roof structure and associated timbers and specialty engineered wood components.

The facility is noted for its use of EWPs in innovative ways, such as a plywood roof diaphragm that clear-spans 250 feet from end-to-end of the arena and acts as the lateral bracing system for both wind and seismic loads. A review in an architectural paper explains that the building incorporates “a hybrid structural system comprising glulam beams, steel king-post trusses, and concrete shear walls that rises to form a broad canopy over a cast-in-place concrete seating bowl, itself ensconced in a trim of zinc-and-glass curtain wall.”

Designers pursued a rolling geometric motif reflecting the surrounding Palouse region’s channeled scablands created by cataclysmic floods at the end of the Ice Age.

Organizers of the eighth Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo (PELICE) have announced a partial list of keynote speakers for the event, which will be held Thursday-Friday, March 31 to April 1, 2022 at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center in downtown Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

Keynoters signing on early include Scott Poole, president and chief operating officer of Louisiana-based RoyOMartin. He’ll talk about confronting the less than predictable variables in today’s business environment, and will also address the construction progress of the company’s second OSB plant at the site in Corrigan, Texas.

Jake Elston, senior vice president of Operations at Oregon-based Roseburg Forest Products, will discuss the company’s growth through geographic diversification, including project development and timberlands acquisition on the Eastern side of the U.S.

Wedig Graf Grote, chief operating officer of Swiss Krono USA, will speak about the successful evolvement through the pandemic of the new MDF facility in Barnwell, SC and address Swiss Krono’s enhanced position in North America and worldwide.

Doug Pauze, president of Coastland Wood Industries, will address the company’s continuing expansion in British Columbia and trends in veneer-plywood markets.

No building products conference is complete without an economics forecast, and Roger Tutterow, highly esteemed director of the Econometric Center and Professor of Economics and Kennesaw State University, will provide his insights and forecasts on the economic, business and political climate, including recent implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several additional keynoters will be announced in the coming weeks.

In addition, PELICE will include numerous technical sessions encompassing subjects such as: Air Emissions Control; Resins & Wax; Veneer & Plywood Technologies (Green & Dry); Greenfield & Brownfield Project Planning & Implementation; Quality Control through Board Scanning & Analysis; Fire Prevention & Suppression; Press Technologies & Components; Digital Capabilities & Integration; New Normal Supply Chain. A special session will address Cross-Laminated Timber—Where It Stands Today.

The number of exhibitor sponsors for PELICE had already reached 65 by early October and nearly 100 exhibitor companies are ultimately expected to fill up the Grand Ballroom North of the Omni Hotel. The exhibitor floor is located immediately adjacent the speaker-meeting rooms.

All PELICE exhibitors are either Gold, Silver or Bronze sponsors, and this PELICE has already has signed on more Gold sponsors than any PELICE in history, with more expected.

Gold sponsors include Dürr Systems (Megtec), IPCO, TSI-Sigma Thermal, Dieffenbacher, Siempelkamp, Meinan Machinery, Cogent Industrial Technologies, Timber Products Inspection, Hexion, Raute, Biomass Engineering & Equipment and Georgia-Pacific Chemicals.

A complete list of Gold, Silver and Bronze exhibitor sponsors can be viewed at www.pelice-expo.com.

PELICE is hosted by Panel World magazine and Georgia Research Institute.

Immediately preceding PELICE will be the seventh Wood Bioenergy Conference & Expo on March 29-30 also in the Grand Ballroom North of the Omni Hotel. Many PELICE exhibitors participate in both events because their products and technologies apply to both the panelboard and wood energy industries.

Exhibitor Information: E-mail [email protected]

Presentation Information: E-mail [email protected]

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