Coös Economic Action Plan
Wood Products Technical Review Committee
First Meeting Summary—long version
Lancaster, NH
December 13, 2007
The meeting was opened by Brad Wyman, Chair. Introductions were made of the following people participating:
Roy Amey, R&L Amey, Inc
Bill Andreas, BEDCO
Dave Atkinson, Wausau Paper
Allen Bouthillier, AB Logging, Inc
Phil Bryce, NH Div of Forests & Lands
Ron Bugeau, Hancock Lumber Co.
Marty Driscoll, North Country Procurement
Kevin Evans, Dartmouth College Forester
Thad Gulbrandsen, Center for Rural Partnerships, Plymouth State University
Jill Kelly, NH Fish and Game Dept.
Bob Perras, Perras Lumber
Sarah Smith, UNH Cooperative Extension
Jasen Stock, NH Timberland Owners Assn
Sam Stoddard (facilitator), UNH Cooperative Extension
Matt Tansey, NH Div of Forests & Lands
Jeff Williams, US Forest Service
Don Tase, Upland Forestry Consultants
Brad Wyman (Chair)
Jeff Hayes (representing the EAP Steering Committee), North Country Council
Peter Riviere (representing the EAP Steering Committee), Coos Economic Dev Corp
Additional meeting support was provided by:
Sue Buteau (recorder), UNH Cooperative Extension
Steve Roberge (research support), UNH Cooperative Extension
Brad presented an anti-trust admonition saying that we needed to exercise due diligence and avoid talking about prices, anticompetitive matters. If anyone feels we have crossed the line into that area to please advice the group, and if that feeling continues should feel free to leave the room and make note of the circumstances for the record.
Sam described the process for the committee---generating ideas and later prioritizing them for further action plan development to take place during January. He described the role of Steve Roberge who was present to conduct on-line preliminary research during the course of the meeting to identify initial reference materials for further consideration by the committee. He described the role of Sue Buteau who would prepare and project bullets of the committee’s ideas during the meeting and who would refine and reorganize the list as the committee later worked through the prioritization process.
Brad presented the agenda for the meeting, which was front-loaded with introductory items and an overview of where we are. The goal was to generate a list of ideas by priority by noon with the meat of the work taking place in the afternoon.
The committee charge as described in the invitation letter was to support the development of the Coos County Economic Action Plan according to a grant obtained by the North Country Council (represented by Jeff Hayes) and the Coos Economic Development Corporation (represented by Peter Riviere). Starting with a blank slate and examining new opportunities, how can we best use them and how can we establish priorities for our economic development in this region? The steering committee has identified timber, alternative energy, tourism and creative economies as the four key areas that they would like to investigate as opportunities. They have established four technical review committees to address each of these areas. We are the Wood Products Technical Review Committee. We will have the opportunity to interact with the other TRCs. The other TRCs will all come together at some point. The objective is to come up with a broad-based, detailed, implementable set of economic action steps.
We have been given some metrics--- things that we should be paying attention to--- as we come up with ideas. We want to be able to explain for each idea generated the level of economic impact primarily in terms of jobs. We should be able to point to measurable improvements in quality of life. We should be able to address the sustainability of our proposal and the feasibility---the likelihood of actually succeeding and obtaining funding. We want to be able to point to a level of innovation---the idea is that if we are not innovative then maybe somebody else will be doing this somewhere else. We want to be sure there is a base of support---mainly this translates to political support. The whole project has the goal of identifying three or four items from each of the four TRCs that we would move ahead on--- in other words no more than about ten items for the overall EAP.
The process will be to have this initial meeting followed by some homework and one or two follow-on meetings to prepare a draft report, which we will take to the February steering committee meeting. And, following that we will make changes based on the steering committee’s guidance and complete our report in the spring.
There are some key elements that have been previously identified---things identified by the steering committee that they would like to have investigated. The first is sustainable levels of wood supply---where does it come from; how long can it come and at what rates can it be sustained? (Hasn’t this already been done? --- It has been done many times by many people. Sarah Smith is here to explain some of this to the committee. It is a moving target. There is the complication of going beyond in-state sources. We need to consider how far beyond the state are we going to go and in which directions. Sarah Smith and Phil Bryce are here to address some of this.)
People also want to know how we might steer investments and wood resources to higher value-added users. In particular there has been the question raised--- is the best thing we can do to burn our wood, or is there something better we can do with it? Are there greater efficiencies or higher values that we can generate than burning our wood?
The ingredients of a wood fiber-based industry--- this is something we will have to talk about further to understand just what this means.
What other resources might supplement or compete with low-grade wood for the market place. On the one hand we might have what we think is a good use for low-grade wood and someone might come up with some other competitive thing, such as switch grass or corn, that might get in the way of our project, or on the other hand might supplement our project.
The forest products development center is brought up in the context of there being a lot of products that have been developed, but have not yet been commercialized. Such a development center would take the research results of the Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, WI, or some other research operation, and determine the practical use of those results. (This is where we might have an interface with the Creative Economy TRC if we follow this line.)
When we get beyond this we want to get into a brain-storming session about other key elements.
Sarah Smith gave a presentation about sustainable levels of wood supply. Highlights of her presentation, which she often gives to companies that express interest in coming into our region and who desire more information about the wood supply.---
The audience ranges from folks who no nothing about our forests to those who are very sophisticated about the information.
The industry is complex. People coming here don’t always understand that.
In coming to NH you see a lot of forest, but there are also a lot of houses out there. She gives the history of the forest--- past agriculture as evidenced by old stonewalls; the effect of farmers moving west; industrial revolution. We are losing forest mostly in the southern part of the State to development.
Sometimes questions point out the need to step way back to basics, for example, “What kind of trees grow in NH?” She provides information about what trees grow in NH and where. Ownership patterns are critical. It is erroneous to think one need only deal with the federal lands. It is the private landowner that is predominant and will really need to deal with them. What is the tenure of private forest owners and investment groups? Forest types (USFS groupings) give a sense of the mix available.
The FIA (Forest Inventory Analysis by the US Forest Service) maintains permanent inventory plots and measures trends over time. There is a book and handout condensed by the NH Division of Forests and Lands that provide numbers. These are the kinds of things people will ask for. This information source is good for examining ratios and trends. For example, what is going on with spruce-fir?
NH is very fortunate to have a Report of Cut, which can provide a tremendous amount of data. The bottom line shows fairly consistent numbers of timber harvests across time. You can expand this table into any time sequence you want, but you are seeing that NH is still fairly committed to cutting timber---you don’t see any dramatic drops or dramatic increases in the number of timber harvests. The reason there are fewer harvests in Coos County than other parts of the State has to do with ownership size---with larger ownerships in Coos County the harvests are fewer, but larger in size. Maps get generated from this data, which shows where harvesting is happening. This Report of Cut data is real and perhaps the most useful data for people considering siting new plants.
Sawmill production chart: There might in interest in using residue from sawmill production, but none is available--- Sawdust to make pellets is just not available. The trend moves. If we go back in time it very much parallels historic events. In 1910 you see the effect of the American chestnut blight accompanied by a lot of sawmill production. You see the effect of the depression and World War II. We are in somewhat of a slump now, but it is not a crisis (it has not crashed). We have the capacity today to saw almost as much as we did in 2000. It is just that everyone is ratcheted down.
With all the focus on low-grade why don’t we focus on the high-grade? --- The ratio of sawlogs to pulpwood is very different in the north as compared to the south. A lot has to do with who is using what. One of the reports produced for the Division of Forests and Lands shows the order of magnitude--- the demand--- for chips. Vermont and Maine are also being looked at for New England Wood Pellet.
It is not really easy to draw conclusions from the Report of Cut and other data.
Matt Ramsey synthesizes and analyzes available data about our forests. Highlights of his presentation---
Sources of data: FIA inventories were conducted for 1973, 1983, 1997, and annual data will be available starting in summer, 2008.
The Report of Cut is excellent data as well. Every time there is a tax you can extract a lot of data. Since the tax has he power of law that provides good information.
Geographic data, while under-developed at present, offers a good source of information. NH has a lot of geographic data, but it requires people to synthesize it and massage it and make it available.
FIA has random plots across the State. They aggregate the data on at county level, but many of the counties are too small to get a meaningful sample. FIA prefers to use larger areas. They divide NH in half, just as they do in VT. In NH they do the three northern counties as a unit, but that unit really acts like three different regions within it where different things are going on--- the White Mountain National Forest (a lot of high quality volume); on the south side of the mountains there are more smaller woodlots with more white pine; on the north side of the mountains is larger lots and most of the industrial wood. FIA doesn’t really make an assessment about accessibility of the wood; it only collects data about what is growing on each plot. Therefore, the FIA report is really the upper limit of what it there. You are never going to get all the wood that FIA reports is present.
Another important statistic is the growth rate per acre.
Chart shows a 20-year trend for Coos County that peaked around 1992-1993.
Chart shows low-grade wood versus sawtimber. On average Coos County does about 350,000 cords per year, which is mostly hardwood and mostly low-grade.
The Report of Cut information can be shown by individual towns or by individual town and species.
FIA does not have much geographical spatial relationship. The Report of Cut enables better precision by showing results by town. By using GIS more you can label the landscape better. It does not solve a specific problem, but it shows comparisons, such as one piece of land may be better than another, etc. It provides a gradient to judge things by, e.g. “Where is the low hanging fruit?”; assess accessibility, operability, incorporate soils data, and socio-political data. Digital elevation model data will help with slope calculations.
Land-cover assessment is a product by GRANIT, which enables taking out agricultural land and open wetlands from consideration. The result could be a theoretical timber base map. The new Wildlife Action Plan (WAP) data can be used to help flavor that landscape.
Question: A key thing that puzzles me regarding sustainability of timber harvests is the matter of age and size-class distribution. --- Answer: this is a very good point---it is within the data.
FIA data doesn’t show whether timber will be allowed to be harvested or not. Biomass Energy Resource Center of Vermont just completed a study that did not exclude those FIA plots on the Green Mountain National Forest that would not be harvested. So, when studies of this nature are done, the first thing to do is remove all those FIA plots that are located on land where timber harvesting is not expected to be accomplished. Then the question is do the statistics hold up for the diameter distributions? (The fewer plots you have may cause your statistics to fall apart.)
Second, can you do something with remote sensing? --- This is still kind of in its infancy; being able to tell the structure of a forest using remote sensing technology. This is something we are looking out for, but really haven’t seen yet.
The third place to go would be more detailed analysis of FIA data.
FIA defines timberland (as distinct from forest) as being land that is capable of growing 20 cubic feet per acre per year. When FIA goes on to federal property they will take out wilderness areas---recognizing that it is not in timber utilization. They might do this also with places like Lake Umbagog NWR, but not sure. With areas like Bunnell Preserve they don’t have the ability to ask the owners if the land is off limits to harvesting. Or, for example, if the sample plot falls in the corner of a property that is remote (e.g. on the other side of a big river) and the owner may consider it not feasible to harvest, FIA has no way of knowing that.
Bottom line: not all land is operable, due to both physical constraints and owner policy restrictions. We are probably removing more growth from available lands than is otherwise indicated by the data. Also, it begs the question who controls the land and the timber harvesting policies?
On the White Mountain National Forest besides the wilderness areas, out of 1 million acres there are less than 300,000 acres that they actually manage for timber removal. --- Therefore, you need to really be careful in analyzing the data.
Division of Forests and Lands has a goal of June 2008 to complete a Coos wood availability study--- an analysis that will try to parse things out in some detail. We have an opportunity to improve the information about Coos County, because we do know approximately what is being harvested on individual acreages.
The availability of markets will affect harvesting. When markets are readily available timber is more likely to be harvested; when the markets are not available wood may not be cut.
The amount of wood cut also depends on the price. Loggers know the cost involved to harvest wood. If the harvesting cost is not adequately compensated by market price, it is likely loggers will not harvest the wood.
The issue of distance of the wood supply from the mill is also affected by price. Mills that keep prices low will have to draw wood from longer distances. The pressure on mill wood buyers to keep prices down has been related to the mill not re-investing in infrastructure many years ago, and now other mills have passed them by. This is a problem in the wood industry.
It is a terrible thing to say, but the closure of the Berlin mill is actually a good thing, because it finally sets the stage for the people of this county to get on to something new that is sustainable for the long term. We need to think outside the box, because making paper in our area is likely to be a thing of the past.
There is a sampling error that is determined for the FIA data. A concern mentioned was the tendency to rubber-stamp approval of every biomass proposal that is presented. It may be erroneous to assume that new biomass plants can rely on wood being available at the same levels as consumed by the former mills of Groveton and Berlin.
Supplying fiber can be done on a cycle of perhaps 30 or 40 years, whereas sawlogs may require about 80 years. Some of the problems are: the economic issues of holding the land; the economics of harvesting the land; and the economics of trucking wood long distances. To just have a biomass plant and just burn wood, we can do that at pulp price. It is not realistic to expect that the two remaining pulp mills in Maine will continue forever. We need to look at something else other than making paper in this country and we have got to start doing it fast. If we don’t want the North Country to become just a playground for the rich and famous, we have to start thinking quick and not worry about where the wood is going to come from---we are going to have an ample supply of fiber out there.
The work of the committee will be posted on a blog at http://extension.unh.edu/blogs/woodtrc Categories will be established for each of the key elements to stream-line the blog. This organized approach will make use of the blog more efficient.
The subject of wood energy may be kept in our discussion. Overlap with the alternative energy TRC is fine.
Additional key elements to consider:
--- sustainable labor supply
---workforce development related to wood products
---wood cooperatives
Biggest value of wood is for lumber. There has been a shift in where lumber markets are located--- they have moved overseas. We depended on the Canadians for a long time, but now that the money exchange rates have evened out, the lumber market has gone overseas.
We need to face the fact that we have out-priced ourselves on the world market. High-value hardwood lumber markets have moved to Indonesia, China, etc. We figure out how to tap into that market. Many of the bigger companies have done that--- they have moved furniture manufacturing plants overseas. Until we can cope with the fact we are no longer competitive in the world market, we have to figure a way to get our products over there, or somehow that we are accessing where their markets are. The Germans, Austrians, etc. have done it. Russia has become a big supplier of wood. China is buying wood. We still have a language gap and a distance gap. There are companies that have set up relations with China. Timber Resource Group (TRG) is one of them. We need to start figuring out how the value of wood can stay here rather than burning it. The issue is overseas export---this continent is not a part of the equation right now.
Coos County is at a geographic disadvantage. We need to consider an action plan that includes Maine, Quebec, NH and Vermont. ---- We could use it as an advantage if the region were opened up.
Maybe formally talking with the timber industry here to ask what kinds of things they would do if they were going to expand. A lot of economic development folks would tell you that a lot of jobs are created by businesses that are here. We should not go very far down the road of planning and then find out about some expansion plan that one of our existing businesses may be planning. ---- Really the importance; the role; the challenges and opportunities for the mills that are here. There are still some very substantial and important operations that are still here in Coos County. It is a lot easier to help someone to stay here rather than start something up from scratch.
There was a forest industry task force that worked on this a number of years ago. We should dust that off. It came out of the forest industry looking principally at lumber. We should take a look at that study to see what the industry said they needed and identified as their key points and update it. --- Is that on the Division website? --- That would help jump start our process. It would be a good thing take a look at and put on the blog or at least link it.
Could the State system search federal contracts? Usually they are pretty huge. The other resource that is available is the International Trade Center at Pease. They do a tremendous job helping companies to determine if they are ready for exporting before venture into it, and actually helping them do market research.
Explore federal programs and subsidies linking the forest products industry and wildlife habitat.
We should identify energy consumption as a separate bullet---high-energy consumption sawmills; high-energy consumption logging operations; a huge impact to landowner values, etc. We need to look at methods that conserve and leverage energy.
There a flip side to what we have just heard: there are numerous overseas economies looking to invest here simply because their costs are 40 percent less. They can produce here cheaper than producing overseas and shipping products here.
There is a lot of interest in buying local. This has increased interest in branding. People may pay a little more knowing it is coming from local sources. Check the NEFA website--- http://nefainfo.org/ --- the Northeast Foresters have done a fair amount of work on this. NEFA did an analysis of branding opportunities in the northeast, and that paper is on this website. It is pretty tricky--- at least from NEFA’s perspective, but who knows until we actually try it. In the context of the Northern Forest Lands, they called it “Northern Forest branding”. Vermont does not want to give up their identity.
There was a representative of the Forest Products Laboratory here, who spoke about all the things they have done on the bench, but have not necessarily been commercialized. For example, synthetic wood that looks like a tile shingle and made from wood. They don’t know the cost, because it has not been commercialized. Maine is doing a lot of new product development. It seems like there are some potential products that can be tapped, such as cellulosic solvents, adhesives, etc. How do we tap those sorts of things?
How do you get the private sector to invest in the new technologies? The “Forest Products Development Center” may not be the best way to do this. --- There appears to be work being done in Maine and Vermont around the idea of economic clusters--- specialty food products, aerospace, etc. --- Clusters where there actually is industry leadership; partnership with universities; partnership with the State. Businesses clustered together are able to do some of that work. We don’t really see much of that work being done in New Hampshire. If we are able to get some industry leadership then it may become a possibility in NH. So, the question becomes: what are the elements that we need to meet?
In this month’s timber harvesting magazine there is a company out of Massachusetts that is doing a plant in Michigan to take black liquor from the pulping process to make ethanol. There may also be paper mill waste that can be used. How do we leverage the existing things we are doing to take them to the next step for those kinds of opportunities? --- Creative value-added.
The Forest Products Lab representative spoke about making paper as a by-product of biomass energy plants. All of a sudden paper could become more viable if it is not the main product. --- They only need the fiber for paper, and the other components of wood are burned. --- Develop synergies between industries and products.
This whole sustainability thing is a continuum. If we are sustainable right now and our sustainability is based upon various companies, we are invariably going to have gaps either where we have too much fiber available, or where not enough fiber available. The many not be a way to deal with these gaps short of planning. Either way there will be either too much labor and too many trees or not enough labor and not enough trees, whenever a facility opens or a facility closes. Is there some way to consider that as we go forward? ---- If we build a biomass plant there is going to be a very high demand, which will raise prices and drive a paper company to shut down a mill, and then we are going to have low demand. So, how do we address that? ---- The challenge is to flatten out the boom-bust cycle. With the right kind of planning this may be possible.
Can we consider grouping the ideas into categories? ---
We need a diverse industry. That way when one industry is trickling down, another is trickling up. To add to that 80 percent of the Coos County harvest is low grade wood. It is in the low grade where the diversity really needs to be, because that is what drives the business. --- For example, you can have lots of diversity for yellow birch slicer logs, but that is not going to do anything to help stabilize the business.
There are a few ideas that fall into “labor and workforce development”. There may be one general category on “creative collaboration”, which would include transportation cooperatives; consolidation yards, rails. Consider categories called “energy”; “Commercialization of new ideas”; and “Market sustainability”.
26 key elements were identified and nominated for action planning to improve the wood products industry in Coös County. These elements were prioritized via a voting process to identify the most important action plan elements. The list was then reorganized according to priority sequence. Group discussion next revealed that some elements should be grouped together and the list was reorganized into an overarching statement followed by five top key elements. The remaining lower priority elements are shown at the bottom of the list.----
Overarching statement: Determining Ingredients of Sustainable Wood Industry -Fiber-Based Industry (This needs to be crafted into a statement about assumptions, etc.) (12 votes)
– Forest Products Development Center
(17 votes) Forest Products Development Center
(5 votes) explore potential products that are still in development stages and not yet commercialized
(4 votes) tap resources about black liquor to ethanol
(9 votes) Alternative/supplemental resources to low-grade wood
(1 vote) explore industry leadership that exists in other states
(10 votes) develop synergistic relationships between industries and products
– Fiber Sustainability
(14 votes) Sustainable levels of woods
– Energy
(14 votes) Identify energy efficiencies in the wood products industry
– Market Diversity
(13 votes) Steering investments/wood resources to higher value-added use
(7 votes) expand diversity of the market and value added products
– Existing Business and Labor
(11 votes) Importance, role, opportunities, and challenges for existing businesses
(5 votes) Communicate with businesses that are here about what they are thinking
(6 votes) Workforce and talent development
Remaining elements considered:
– (4votes) Other models – transportation cooperatives
– (4 votes) Dust off forest industry task force report
– (3 votes) Overseas export of lumber
– (1 vote) Sustainable labor supply
– (1 vote) Explore foreign investors
– (0 votes) Regional economic action plan
– (0 votes) Explore existing resources for grants, market research, etc. (Pease)
– (0 votes) Explore federal subsidies that are available
– (0 votes) wildlife habitat
– (0 votes) possible marketing to promote products to statewide, local markets (branding)
– (0 votes) NEFA website http://nefainfo.org/
– (0 votes) focus on sustainability and future influences on change and fluctuations of demand
Comments raised during group discussion of the key elements:
What would be the definition of the item called “determination of the ingredients of the wood fiber-based industry”? --- not understood just what it means. We should lump environmental issues into that, including wildlife habitat. --- examining how wood harvesting impacts wildlife habitat and water quality, etc.
Transportation costs have more than doubled in the last two years.
The energy piece cuts two ways: energy consumption versus energy production.
The Wood Products TRC should consider the energy consumption side of this issue, in other words the energy efficiency of mills. (The Energy TRC must be considering transmission lines.)
The Task Force report focused on existing businesses and retention. It considered things like: energy, workforce development, insurance, regulation, etc.
The lower ranking items on the list were decided to be listed at the bottom of the list as other items considered.
Is there an opportunity at the next meeting to discuss “property taxes”, or other things that have not made this list? If there isn’t, then we better reconsider this list.
Property taxes affect recreation, business, and everyone equally. --- There is nothing this committee is going to do about taxes other than to support current use taxation program in NH.
Preconditions: Industry needs to be environmentally sustainable; sustainable over the long term for supply; a sustainable tax structure; a work force that is well educated and not overly burdened; health insurance, etc.
There are two audiences for the final report: the steering committee is made up of lay people (business and community leaders, chamber of commerce heads, etc., who are going to move the plan along). In essence the document produced by the Wood TRC will be an educating the steering committee to enable them to make certain that federal, state and local officials understand that this is the county plan as presented.
It was generally agreed that “determining needs of the fiber-based industry” needs to be moved to the top of the list and presented as a statement of purpose for the action plan (a background, contextual statement).
We need to determine what we need to find out about the top five key elements. --- What do we need to know? Who can find out? Where can we find out? --- Start at the top and find out what is known about forest products development, so we can come back to the next meeting with some of that information to develop at our next meeting.
Last April 12, the Director of the forest products laboratory came to Plymouth State and talked about existing research and things going on at the lab. Out of his visit there came the opportunity for collaboration between the lab and some entity in New Hampshire. They are doing a lot of research and development, but they are not doing a lot of commercialization. So, we started a group of about 30 people at Plymouth State to start to hash out what such a partnership might look like, especially looking at commercialization for producing products in New Hampshire. Then a smaller subgroup broke off to start developing the concept. The concept that started to develop is that the product development center does not need to be bricks and mortar; it can be some sort of a virtual center. It does not need to be what people generally understand as an incubator, but rather an incubation process. If it focuses on commercialization it does not need the scientific-engineering arm. It needs to focus on business development, business plans, etc. It can answer questions for woods industry, and a variety of different things. It can be connected to another institution in the way that the Brown lab was back in its day, or it can be connected to a university, or some combination of things. But, we should not think that the center has to be a structure. We do not need to raise funds to construct a building. A couple months ago, knowing this current planning effort would be undertaken, we decided to back off on that committee a little bit. And we also came up against one major obstacle: everybody on that committee was non-profit, university, state employees--- we were not wood industry people. In order for success, we need to solve that issue---industry has to have some sort of a leadership role; they don’t necessarily have to carry the water. We just have to know that we are working on behalf of industry; that industry is at the center of it. We just have to solve that problem. We have to figure out what that industry connection is going to be. That is where that stands. The Wood TRC can carry on from there, or not, as it chooses.
Some of the questions about such a center are: University of Maine has a very large program of wood products development. NH does not. Who is going to do it? Getting it there is always tough. --- We have an entity in Groveton right now. We have the opportunity in Groveton now to not only burn wood, but do bio-fuel, bio-chemicals, and use the excess steam to heat the community and produce electricity, and potentially commercial greenhouses off of it. Maybe could tie in UNH or Plymouth State for a schooling component. The building is there—don’t have to build one. There might be federal funding available. The opportunity is there right now to explore this as the possible beginning of a development center.
One step may be to visit the University of Maine. They get a lot of money to look into these things. They are not duplicating the research of the product development center. They are, for example, developing new composite materials such as bricks that can be used on waterfronts. They are developing new wood composite hull materials for boats to be used by Navy Seals. --- We need to think about what a center could be; not necessarily what centers have been in the past. We might start to think creatively about some of these other possibilities. --- You go to Maine and Madison and say: “ OK, what have you developed that has potential that you don’t have an entrepreneur for?” --- Or, you ask it the other way around by going to existing businesses and say: “how can we help you diversify or create a new product? There is lots of incentive to do this: funding, tax credits, business plans, etc. ---- Where do you find this?
If we can tie new products as by-products of the existing products we produce, it may help our existing industries to survive, and create new jobs here, too.
We don’t have that many substantial, existing industries left, unfortunately, in Coos County. Can we just sit down and talk with them? (There are not that many.) We can ask what their needs are, rather than make presumptions; maybe help them brainstorm. They may not have any needs, but if we don’t have them engaged, we might come up with all kinds of ideas, but chances are they are going to have to put up resources---even if it means only one person to meet with you---unless they are bought on it won’t happen.
Hasn’t New Hampshire invested money into Ethan Allen, because of the employment. --- That was the case of them having a need and NH stepped up and helped. We may not have had that discussion with other businesses in the State.
If entrepreneurs and not interested in doing anything, then what is the back-up plan? Who is going to put up the money? The best investors to start with are the ones that are here today.
If the value-added is not going to be in sawing boards and moving them, and the value-added is going to be in down-stream chemicals, then that is where you have got to be. A situation analysis report on the forest products economy of the northern forest region states that pulp and paper is 75 times value-added in electricity. Biomass energy is 40 times value-added. If we put our eggs in that basket we are cutting in half our economy. --- If we are going to go to the “tried and true” industries and ask, “how can you expand your sawmill operations?”, that may not be necessarily the biggest value-added. --- We might think broader. We might think about Whitefield and Bethlehem. They are doing a lot of expansion; not sure what they are thinking about.
There is the matter of retention of existing businesses, and new business start-ups. They don’t have to occur at the exclusion of the other. The biggest payoff is retaining existing businesses. Then there may be some opportunities for new start-ups. How can we get new companies to start?
It would be great to assist existing companies to start up new technology units. That would be the best case scenario. We need to transition a portion of the industry; probably everyone acknowledges that to some extent.
Maybe one of the paper companies would be interested in making biochemical or befoul by-products.
The product of this meeting is that we have five bullets representing our key elements. The chair and facilitator will put these bullets into a form that we can work with for the next meeting.
We should have a plan to talk with existing businesses: tell them what we are trying to do, and ask if they have any ideas. --- don’t talk to procurement; talk to people from the mill itself.
The following subcommittees were established to investigate and develop further action planning for each of the five key elements before the next committee meeting.---
Forest products development center:
Bill Andreas
Allen Bouthillier
Ron Bugeau
Fiber sustainability:
Matt Tansey
Kevin Evans
Marty Driscoll
Sarah Smith
Jill Kelly
Will Abbott
Energy:
Don Tase
Roy Amey
Market diversity:
Bill Andreas
Allen Bouthillier
Ron Bugeau
Existing business and labor:
Sarah Smith
Bob Perras
Ron Bugeau
Committee members should send any proposed blog entries to Sam for posting.
The second Wood Products TRC meeting will be held at UNH Cooperative Extension, Lancaster, NH on January 17th starting at 10 AM. The third meeting is scheduled for January 30th, same place and time.
Submitted by: Sam Stoddard