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If pressed to name the biggest forest products companies in the U.S., or the most significant in Washington, you might come up with names such as Weyerhaeuser or Boise Cascade or Georgia-Pacific. For some local flavor you might throw in some names such as Simpson, Longview Fibre or Plum Creek.

If you did, you might be dating yourself, because the majority of those companies have restructured, downsized or been bought out, to the extent that they bear little resemblance to the companies that once represented Big Timber – and there’s another term that seems anachronistic now. You’d also have neglected to mention the company that is the nation’s second largest lumber producer, one that is of increasing importance to what remains of the forest products industry in this state – Sierra Pacific Industries.

To all but the closest observer of the industry, “Sierra who?” would likely be the most common response, and understandably so. Sierra Pacific isn’t based here; the headquarters are in Anderson, Calif. It’s not publicly traded; instead it’s in its third generation of family ownership. While it does operate three lumber mills in Washington – in Aberdeen, Burlington and Centralia, they aren’t big concentrated complexes like lumber mills of old. And Sierra Pacific hasn’t done a big splashy acquisition or merger that would have made headlines.

In fact the “second largest lumber producer” ranking, as posted on Sierra Pacific’s website, came as something of a surprise to this columnist, who has tracked the industry for more than two decades and has been aware of Sierra Pacific, but would not have come up with that name if asked for the nation’s biggest lumber manufacturers. But that’s one more illustration of the dramatic changes in an industry once as closely identified with the state’s identity as airplanes and apples (and as long as the world keeps buying 737s, we should keep our lead as top U.S. producer for both, for a while longer).

From The News Tribune: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/09/14/3372847_sierra-pacific-becomes-quiet-giant.html?sp=/99/261/&rh=1