Glen Duysen, 96, Remembered For Always Stepping Up

Glen H. Duysen, co-founder of Sierra Forest Products, and a leader in the Western timber industry, died February 7. He was 96.

Duysen was a past president of the Western Timber Assn., Timber Assn. of California, Pacific Logging Congress and Sierra-Cascade Logging Conference. He served as President of the Terra Bella Chamber of Commerce and was a Director of the Porterville Chamber of Commerce. He was also a 65-year member of the Society of American Foresters, the same group that named him Forester of the Year in 1960.

Born in Long Beach, Calif., and after attending high school in Bellflower, Duysen went to Long Beach City College for one year before going to Oregon State University in Corvallis where he graduated in 1951. Meanwhile he had married Virginia Harrison in 1948.

Duysen’s first job was with the Oregon State Board of Forestry out of Salem, Ore. The state had passed a bond to re-forest the Tillamook Burn, which had burned three times. Duysen was involved in the first ever aerial seeding of the burn area. Not seeing the advancement with the State Board of Forestry, he decided to go to work in the private sector and took a job in Medford, Ore. cruising timber on a 40,000-acre tract. After two years he took a job with KOGAP Lumber Co., working there for the next 11 years.

Through his work in the forest industry, Duysen met John Hamacher who had owned a sawmill in Talent, Ore. that had burned down. Duysen and Hamacher joined forces and came to California in 1966 to start Sierra Forest Products. Duysen reflected on it as the toughest decision he ever made.

Sierra Forest Products began as a sawmill on 80 acres. The sawmill cut its first log in February 1968. In its prime, Sierra Forest Products had 250 employees, until President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to create the Giant Sequoia National Monument, which took more than 360,000 acres out of production in the Sequoia National Forest. With that amount of acreage removed, the sawmill had no other choice but to reduce operations.

In the early 1990s Duysen sold his partnership in Sierra Forest Products to Hamacher. But the business remained a family operation for 56 years with Glen and his sons Larry and Kent continuing to work for the business. Hamacher died in 1993 and Kent Duysen took over as president of the company.

The Duysens continued to work for conservation and timber management and all three testified before Congress on behalf of foresters and the timber industry. They stressed the need for forest management plans that reduced density and dead and down fuels to reduce the chance of catastrophic fires. They also participated with the U.S. Forest Service on the Dinky Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project to restore forestlands and promote wildfire resilience.

Duysen never really retired from the sawmill. He continued coming to the sawmill at least three days a week until a broken hip in April 2022 kept him from driving to check on his orange grove and check in at the mill.

Sierra Forest Products was sold in July 2023 to Sierra Forest Products Holdings, Inc., a partnership of TNT Wholesalers and SFP sales manager Seth Hokit. Sierra Forest Products remains the southern most lumber operation in California.

Duysen is survived by children Larry (Kathleen) of Castle Rock, Wash.; Kent (Sammie) of Porterville; Ann (Tom) Brodersen of Visalia,; David (Paulette) of San Anselmo; and niece Janet Hoover Peterson of Fallon, Nevada. He is also survived by 11 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Virginia in 2023 and his sister Betty Bickerstaff in 2017.

A Celebration of Life was held February 13 at Terra Bella United Presbyterian Church, with Interment at Hillcrest Cemetery in Porterville. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his name to the Terra Bella United Presbyterian Church or American Care Hospice in Visalia.