by Web Editor | Dec 9, 2016 | News
Oregon’s Rosboro Announces Sale Of Wood Products Plants
Wood products manufacturer Rosboro of Springfield on Tuesday announced that it has sold its manufacturing business to Wynnchurch Capital, an Illinois-based investment firm. The sale for an undisclosed amount involves seven manufacturing plants in Oregon, including Rosboro’s main facility at South 28th and Main streets in Springfield.
Wynnchurch Capital, based in Rosemont, Ill., describes itself as a “value-oriented, operationally focused private equity firm that specializes in complex transactions in the U.S. and Canada.”
Last month, Rosboro announced that it had sold its 95,000 acres of timberlands to an investment group managed by Campbell Global, a Portland-based investment firm. Rosboro also declined to disclose the sale price of that deal. Wynnchurch Capital owns 19 companies, according to its website, including manufacturing, building materials and transportation firms.
In a joint press release with Rosboro, Wynnchurch Partner Ian Kirson said, “We are excited to partner with the management team of Rosboro to continue the company’s track record of customer service, quality and innovation. Rosboro has a bright future, and we look forward to supporting the company’s growth.”
Rosboro Chief Executive Scott Nelson said, “Wynnchurch has an outstanding reputation for supporting growth and providing management teams with strategic guidance that fits perfectly into the company’s focus for the future.”
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by Web Editor | Nov 21, 2016 | News
WoodWorks, a proponent of large-scale wood construction in the U.S., launched an updated version of its free carbon calculator, adding more options for buildings made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) and other mass timber products. The addition reflects rising interest in large scale wood building construction.
WoodWorks, which receives finding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture as well as timber companies and forest products manufacturers, promotes use of wood products as a means to store carbon, instead of building materials such as cement and steel that require fossil fuel energy to manufacture, a move that can help reduce greenhouse gases.
“The carbon calculator is a useful tool for building owners and designers who’d like to gain insight on the environmental value of alternate designs,” said Bill Parsons, Senior National Director of the Architectural & Engineering Solutions Team at WoodWorks. “It also provides information that allows them to express the carbon benefits of their wood building projects.”
To calculate the carbon benefits of a wood building, users access the carbon calculator at www.woodworks.org/carbon-calculator and enter nominal wood volume information. The calculator then estimates:
• How much time it takes U.S. and Canadian forests to grow that volume of wood
• The amount of carbon sequestered in the wood products, and
• Greenhouse gas emissions avoided by not using more fossil fuel-intensive materials.
• It also uses the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator to equate the total carbon benefit to number of cars off the road and home operational energy.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/free-carbon-calculator-shows-how-much-co2-wood-construction-saves?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news
by Web Editor | Aug 15, 2016 | News
Build With Strength, an industry campaign of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association, is questioning the use of cross-laminated timber in construction. The group said that wood products can be a questionable building material for several reasons, and that concrete is more fire resistant, provides improved air quality, and is more environmentally responsible.
The trade group said that the only houses standing in parts of Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina were made with concrete. In the event of a large fire, such as those that have burned parts of the western states, the group said that concrete would be a better material.
The association’s Build With Strength campaign is designed to educate design and build and code communities about the benefits of concrete construction in the low to mid-rise sector.
Build With Strength has teamed with the Alabama Concrete Industries Association to present its seminar for architects, engineers, builders and developers. During “A Day of Concrete Knowledge” offered on both Wednesday, September 7, in Huntsville and Thursday, September 8, in Birmingham, the presentation will focus on performance in buildings. Building materials play a big role in energy use and deciding the safety and resiliency of the built environment.
This presentation will explore emerging trends in housing and development; innovations in concrete construction; case studies that showcase building value generation; economical design of concrete wall and floor systems; and how to utilize free resources to design structures. The program offers architects and engineers two hours of professional learning credits, along with four hours of additional concrete-related topics.
From Woodworking Network: https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/news/woodworking-industry-news/concrete-industry-group-questions-cross-laminated-timber-safety?ss=news,news,woodworking_industry_news,news,almanac_market_data,news
by Web Editor | Jul 20, 2016 | News
For years, it was known as the ugly duckling, cheaper alternative to plywood. One design maven described it as “like the turkey loaf of building materials.” But oriented strand board – OSB for short – has come into its own over the past 3 1/2 decades as a major player in North American wood-frame housing construction and is increasingly used for industrial and other applications.
Structural OSB panels – made of wood strands that are resin-bonded under high pressure and heat – are mostly used as floor, roofing or wall substrate in home building. They’re also getting play these days on fashionable interior-decoration websites as a “shabby-chic” finishing material.
Capitalizing on OSB’s rise like no other forest-products company is Toronto-based Norbord Inc. Norbord, once a diversified forestry company, has shed assets over the years and focused on OSB. Now boasting annual sales in the $1.5-billion (U.S.) range and a market capitalization of about $2.4-billion (Canadian), it bills itself as the world’s largest producer of OSB.
The $763-million acquisition in 2014 of Vancouver-based Ainsworth Lumber Co. Ltd. gave Norbord – whose operations were concentrated in the U.S. southeast – a strong presence in Western Canada as well as a foothold in the promising Japanese market.
Right now, the steadily growing number of housing starts in the United States is giving Norbord a big boost, and low-key, media-shy chief executive officer Peter Wijnbergen says there are major growth opportunities in Europe and Asia.
From The Globe And Mail: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/forest-products-firm-norbord-riding-the-rising-wave-of-osb-sales/article30985989/
by Web Editor | May 20, 2016 | News
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell today announced over $8.5 million to expand and accelerate technologies and strategies that promote the use of wood in commercial construction, heat and power generation, and other wood product innovations that also benefit forest health. Federal funds will leverage more than $18 million in investments from 42 business, university, nonprofit and Tribal partners in 19 states, for a total investment of $27 million.
“We are looking for opportunities to reduce forest restoration costs and create more jobs through strong forest products markets,” said Chief Tidwell. “This funding supports improving forest health on the National Forest System lands and other forested lands and promotes the economic and environmental well being of rural communities.”
The awarded funds will stimulate the use of hazardous fuels from National Forest System lands and other forested lands to promote forest health while simultaneously generating rural jobs. This year, 77 proposals were received for the Forest Service’s Wood Innovations grant program, highlighting the expanding interest and use of wood as a renewable energy source and as an innovative building material.
Healthy markets for forest products help the nation’s forests mitigate some of the impacts of climate change. Research has demonstrated that wood products from responsibly managed forests outperform other building materials in measures of greenhouse gas intensity, air and water pollution and other environmental impacts. Responsibly-sourced forest products also provide income for private landowners that keep their land forested and supports needed investments in forest management to provide clean water, wildlife habitat, and other resources millions of Americans depend upon.
Today’s announcement supports USDA’s Building Blocks for Climate Smart Agriculture and Forestry-a comprehensive effort to provide America’s farmers, ranchers and forest landowners with the tools and resources they need to combat climate change. Through this work, USDA expects to reduce net emissions and enhance carbon sequestration in soils and forests by over 120 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year by 2025-the equivalent of taking 25 million cars off the road or offsetting the emissions produced by powering nearly 11 million homes each year.
From the USDA: https://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usda/usdahome?contentid=2016/05/0115.xml&contentidonly=true
