by Web Editor | Aug 21, 2012 | Taking Stock
Story by Rich Donnell,
Editor-in-Chief
Like most businesses, we at Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. have had to diversify in order to strengthen ourselves. Life would be pretty simple if we merely had to produce magazines. Gone are the days when my only title was editor-in-chief. Now I’m also a Show Director. That’s “Show” as in Show Business. Our chief operating officer, Dianne Sullivan, is now also a Show Manager. Others here have enhanced their titles and responsibilities as well.
Many of you are familiar with our Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo, immediately preceded by our Bioenergy Fuels & Products Conference & Expo, held every other year in Atlanta. These are primarily conferences, with dozens and dozens of speakers in lots of meeting rooms, supported by many small exhibits.
I hope by now you have heard of our newest event, the Timber Processing & Energy Expo, scheduled this October 17-19 at the Portland Exposition Center in Portland, Ore. This event is kind of the reverse of our Atlanta event. TP&EE is more of a traditional big machinery expo, with a small conference element to it.
In fact more than 150 exhibitors will be showcasing their technologies to primary producers—such as yourself—of veneer, plywood, engineered wood products, lumber and wood energy. Please read through pages 10-19 in this issue, and you’ll see who is exhibiting, who is speaking, where all this is happening, and how you can register.
Many of you, like us, for many years attended and exhibited at a previous machinery show in Portland. Like all shows, that one had its high points and low points. We decided to do our own event in Portland mainly because many of you had been asking us to do one. Even before our event in Atlanta, Hatton-Brown Publishers had entered show business by producing a timber harvesting show in the South. The idea of now doing a new show in Portland seemed to make a lot of sense.
I won’t bore you with details of how much work we’ve put into this event—we all work more than we should, right?—but I will say that I sincerely hope that the work we’ve done and continue to do has been the correct way to go about it, and that the new Timber Processing & Energy Expo will live up to your expectations and ours.
We feel the event is hitting at about the right time. The machinery manufacturers have been introducing new technologies and upgrading older ones. There seems to be some good news in the building sectors. And oh yes, isn’t there a presidential election happening the month after the show?
And when you come, bring a lot of your mill production personnel with you. Tell them to wear their company jackets proudly.
by Site Manager | Apr 27, 2012 | Update
Organizers of the new Timber Processing & Energy Expo report that 65 equipment and supplier companies have signed up to exhibit during the October 17-19 event to be held at the Portland Exposition Center in Portland, Ore. Those exhibitors have reserved 21,000 sq. ft. of booth space, as of early April, meaning the event is more than 60% sold out.
“And we’re still six months away,” comments Co-Chairman Rich Donnell, who is also the Editor-in-Chief of Panel World magazine and Hatton-Brown Publishers, Inc. “The show is almost selling itself, which indicates to me that companies are anxious to experience a new venue in the Northwest.”
Panel World is affiliated with Hatton-Brown Expositions, which is the show producer. Panel World along with Hatton-Brown publications Timber Processing and Wood Bioenergy are the magazine hosts of the event.
The Portland Expo Center is conveniently located off Interstate 5 between downtown Portland and Vancouver, Washington. It’s only minutes from the Portland International Airport and has immediate access to the Max Light Rail.
TP&EE is scheduled for Hall D, which encompasses 72,000 sq. ft., nearly half of which will be sold as exhibit space. The overall Exposition Center sits on 60 acres and includes five halls with 330,000 sq. ft. The facility hosts more than 100 events annually, attracting in excess of 500,000 attendees.
Exhibitors will cater to an attendee base of primary producers of lumber, veneer/plywood and engineered wood products as well as wood-to-energy producers.
The previous Portland show under a different ownership simply ran its course, Donnell says. “It was a great show for many, many years. But I believe the machinery community and the mill community are looking for a new event that is organized and operated by people who are hands-on with the wood products industry. In fact people have been asking us for years to do this.”
Donnell says that one area where the previous Portland show became increasingly lacking was the veneer/plywood industry. “It became almost purely a lumber show, and certainly lumber is a major portion of it,” Donnell says. “But the veneer/plywood sector is equally as big and we intend for our new event to represent it equally well.”
Panel World magazine was one of the hosts of the recently concluded Panel & Engineered Lumber International Conference & Expo (PELICE) in Atlanta. Asked what the difference is between PELICE and the new Portland show, Donnell responds, “PELICE was primarily a conference with great support from the exhibitor community. TP&EE is primarily a machinery exhibitor show.”
However, Donnell adds that TP&EE will have a conference element to it, more specifically called “Workshop Morning.” It will be held on the morning of October 18 and include three subject areas, with multiple presenters addressing each. The topics are: Veneer Lathes & Dryers; Wood Energy Systems; and Sawmill Scanning & Optimization. The topics relate to the show’s three main areas of focus: veneer and panel production; wood-to-energy; and lumber production,
“We’re now beginning our promotion efforts to convince the mill community that they will thoroughly enjoy this event,” Donnell says. “Many of them, particularly in the panel sector, had quit coming to the Portland show because they weren’t getting enough out of it.”
Donnell adds that these same people are the readers of Panel World, Wood Bioenergy and Timber Processing magazines. “They know us. They know we’ll give this show 110% with them in mind.”
For information on exhibit space sales, contact Fred Kurpiel at 678-642-1238; e-mail fredkurpiel@aol.com.
For information on Workshop Morning, e-mail rich@hattonbrown.com.
Also visit www.timberprocessingandenergyexpo.com.
