September 2026

This issue is devoted mostly to the Timber Processing & Energy Expo, which will be held September 23-25 at the Portland Exposition Center in Portland, Ore. Our affiliate Hatton-Brown Expositions produces the show, and this magazine serves as the media host.
The headline on the cover of this month’s magazine purposefully emphasizes that it’s time for the Northwest sawmill industry to step up and make itself heard. Remember that memorable line in The Shawshank Redemption? “Get busy living or get busy dying.”

The Trump Administration, mainly through the Dept. of Agriculture and the U.S. Forest Service, is doing all it can to provide life support, such as streamlin- ing the cumbersome timber sales process, establishing a goal for a 25% increase in timber sales volume, steering millions of dollars toward wood products manu- facturing projects, and in this issue we report on the administration’s intention to do away with the roadless area designation, which has tied up millions of acres of timberland for decades. Finally there is a real effort to manage national forest timberland the way it’s supposed to be managed, as opposed to doing nothing and letting the timberland simmer before the next carbon dioxide explosion.

And we are hearing about some sawmill projects in the works, none bigger than Sierra Pacific Industries at Eugene. SPI is quickly bringing its new large log mill along, which reminds me of a recent observation from a Northwest logger that much of the national forest timber has for so long been neglected that the size of the timber may be a limiting factor for existing mills, so it will take some real new investment in large log facilities. A strong housing market would make sawmillers a lot more comfortable moving forward with this.

Certainly the equipment community is not merely standing on the sidelines twiddling its thumbs. Reading through the TP&EE Portland preview section in this issue, which is composed of exhibitors that are also advertising in this issue, one finds an abundance of new or improved products and technologies, such as Au- tomation & Electronics’ new AutoGrader, Can-Am Chains new DLI sharp chain, Carbotech’s new trimmer, Comact’s new cutting solutions, DO2’s new robotics system, Greg F. Smith’s new G-Frame log breakdown system (we all remember the C-Frame), JAMEC’s new stick feeding system, JoeScan’s new vision system, Real Performance Machinery’s new bandmill design and the list goes on.

Sawmillers can’t afford to miss these new developments, which will be there for the taking so to speak at TP&EE.

Another reason sawmillers need to show up is simply to send a message: that although it has taken some nasty hits to the jaw through the decades, the North- west sawmill industry is still on its feet, still a factor to be reckoned with. TP&EE Portland is the venue to show their stuff.