The Collins Companies is taking the bull by the horn. That is, during a soft market, the Portland, Ore.-based company is aggressively proceeding with new lumber mill projects in Boardman, and Lakeview, Ore. In September Collins Companies held a ground breaking ceremony for the new Collins Pacific Albus (poplar) hardwood lumber sawmill in Boardman.

In 2005, Ken Eldredge delivered a load of pack baskets to a customer in southern Maine. He left Corinth early to beat the morning rush hour traffic and arrived ahead of schedule. Eldredge decided to kill time in the pellet stove section of a nearby store, where he struck up a conversation with the owner and ended up missing his appointment.

Ric Singor is a typical custom sawmill owner. The independent sawmiller and partner in Muskoka Timbermills spends most of his time behind a desk handling wholesale marketing. Yet, he has a hands-on side and prides himself in being able to run every piece of gear in the mill, which means, for example, it’s nothing for him to don the work clothes and fill in for a vacationing foreman.

Fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit that led to the establishment of 21 chip mills across the U.S and Australia, as well as further development of the revolutionary rubber-tired drum debarker, Price Companies founder J.P. Price isn’t afraid to take adventurous steps in the timber industry.

With the declining availability of skilled industrial workers, along with lack of industry support by educational and private concerns, it is getting tougher to locate and hire skilled industrial workers. Rather than fight this battle, it is far better to develop employees that you currently have and promote from within your own company.

It’s time for our annual “You Said It” column, which is a series of comments that you’ve made to our writers during the course of the year. Everybody had something to say about the sour markets, so we’re not printing any of those comments here. Too depressing.

Progressive Solutions Inc., Vancouver, BC, reports International Forest Products Ltd. (Interfor) has ordered Lumber Track V8 in a 60-user, eight facility implementation that will integrate business and transactional data at the head office, sales and production facilities in the Pacific Northwest.