WHY Is America The Biggest Lumber Importer In The World? | Mike Albrecht #428 | The Way I Heard It

Summary

In this episode of 'The Way I Heard It,' Mike Rowe delves deep into America's timber industry with Mike Albrecht, President of the American Loggers Council. Despite the United States being one of the most forested nations, it stands as the world's largest lumber importer. The discussion unfolds around myths about the logging industry, the evolution of wood as a premier building material, and the great untapped potential of American forests. They explore how environmental regulations and public perceptions have shaped the industry's current state and future potential. The conversation extends to innovative uses of wood in modern construction and energy, highlighting the industry's capacity for sustainable growth.

Highlights

• Mike Albrecht emphasizes the importance of clearing misconceptions about loggers, likening them to farmers and ranchers. 🚜
• A surprising insight: One-third of the U.S. is covered in forests, equalling 800 million acres. 🌳
• Wood is being hailed as the future's premier building material with structures now reaching skyscraper heights. 🏙️
• Despite having abundant forest resources, America imports 25% of its lumber, mainly from Canada. 📦
• Forests need better management to prevent fire and decay, which could otherwise make the U.S. 'wood-independent.' 🚒

Key Takeaways

• Despite a third of the U.S. being forested, America is the world's largest lumber importer. 📊
• Innovative building techniques, such as cross-laminated timber, prove wood is the future of construction. 🏗️
• Environmental regulations significantly impact the logging industry's potential to utilize and export resources. 🌲
• Technological advancements in logging can attract new generations into the industry. 🎮
• Better forest management can prevent wildfires and promote environmental sustainability. 🔥

Overview

Discover the intriguing world of American forestry as Mike Rowe and Mike Albrecht discuss why the U.S., despite its vast forested landscapes, is the biggest lumber importer globally. The answer lies in balancing environmental management and harnessing technological advancements to reform perceptions and policies around logging.

Amid debates on forest conservation, logging technologies akin to video gaming consoles are attracting younger generations to join the industry. The conversation broadens with insights into innovative uses of wood, from building high-rise structures to generating biomass energy, showing wood's newfound importance in modern society.

The story of American logging is not just about cutting down trees; it's a narrative involving reforming legislative actions and public beliefs. As Albrecht shares riveting stories of smoke-filled skies and legislative battles, he underscores the crucial role loggers play in shaping sustainable forests, echoing Smokey Bear’s message: 'Only you can prevent forest fires.'

Chapters

• 00:00 - 05:00: Introduction to the American Timber Industry The chapter begins by highlighting a surprising fact: that one-third of the country is covered in forests. This naturally leads to a discussion about the potential future of wood as a primary building material. The conversation takes an interesting turn as the concept of wooden planes is introduced, evoking curiosity about the feasibility of such an idea. Historical references are made to illustrate the early use of wood in aviation, notably drawing parallels with the Spruce Goose, a large wooden aircraft that did not achieve commercial success, implying the challenges inherent in using wood for advanced technological applications. The chapter seems to touch upon the balance of tradition and innovation within the timber industry, hinting at the complexities of integrating wood into modern technology.
• 05:00 - 15:00: Logging and Forest Management The chapter discusses logging and forest management, drawing from dialogues with experts in the field. It highlights the practical aspects of managing forests in the context of significant fire events like the Rim Fire and Palisades Fire. It mentions the involvement of the American Loggers Council, indicating the speaker's significant engagement with events and management strategies in forestry.
• 15:00 - 25:00: America's Lumber Importation This chapter introduces the American Loggers Council, a national organization representing loggers from 45 state logging organizations. It comprises approximately 10,000 companies and employs between 50,000 to 60,000 loggers across the nation. These loggers are responsible for delivering essential wood products to America. The chapter hints at addressing common myths and misconceptions about the logging industry.
• 25:00 - 40:00: Fires and Environmental Concerns The chapter delves into common misconceptions and misunderstandings about the timber industry. It raises the issue of mistaken beliefs people hold regarding the industry, comparing loggers to ranchers, miners, and farmers. The emphasis is on changing the perception of loggers to acknowledge their role as caretakers of natural resources.
• 40:00 - 55:00: Wood as a Building Material In this chapter titled 'Wood as a Building Material', the discussion revolves around the historical significance of timber and logging in the economy. It highlights the role of loggers and the transformation of natural resources into usable products. The narrative touches on the early 1800s when Banger was not just America's but the world's leading exporter of lumber, emphasizing the pioneering spirit and industrious efforts of the colonists.
• 55:00 - 70:00: Personal Story and Industry Challenges The chapter discusses the transformation of the East Coast from being densely forested to its current state, expressing concerns about people's awareness of how much forest land remains today.
• 70:00 - 80:30: The Future of the Timber Industry The chapter titled 'The Future of the Timber Industry' explores the challenges and evolution of the timber industry. It begins by discussing how loggers often face difficult conditions, being the first to venture into new territories without infrastructure like railroads. Historically, this has led to a negative perception of the logging community. However, the narrative shifts to highlight the essential role of the timber industry in the American economy. Despite their importance, the chapter points out that environmental groups often tarnish the image of the industry, reflecting ongoing tensions between economic activities and environmental conservation.

WHY Is America The Biggest Lumber Importer In The World? | Mike Albrecht #428 | The Way I Heard It Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 first of all you're telling me this country is a third Forest yeah secondly you're telling me that the future of building materials is wood yep which leads me to the next question wooden planes are they coming that's how we started right right was it the Back to the Future wasn't the Spruce Goose basically a a wooden plane it did not do well when you force rhymes like that into technology the Spruce Goose you were you were tempting fate
• 00:30 - 01:00 I've been talking about Forest management and water management and Land Management with various experts for a long time and it's all been very ethereal or academic or abstract you know and then all of a sudden there's this event yeah and I suspect you can talk about the rim fire and you can talk about the Palisades fire and you can talk I mean you've had a front row seat to so much of this so you're in charge of the the American loggers Council yeah and and where does that rank in the pantheon of over of of acronyms in
• 01:00 - 01:30 charge well the the American loggers Council represents the nation if you will Nations loggers so 45 states have state organizations that represent logging all those States together combined are the American loggers Council so we're looking at about 10,000 companies and about 50 or 60,000 loggers that do the heavy lifting every day to get products to America can we start Maybe maybe with myths and
• 01:30 - 02:00 misperceptions and you know the beliefs mistaken beliefs that that people hold about our Timber industry in general that have led to this uh this my Asma of misunderstanding yeah when people think of loggers what I would like them to think of is ranchers miners uh Farmers those folks take God's given
• 02:00 - 02:30 natural resources that we blessed with and turn them into products that we use that's what loggers do we're the same as those folks only we're working with Timber when our country was formed Mike loggers were some of the first people that went to work back in the early 1800s Banger M was uh not the leading Lumber shipping exporter in America it was a leading Lumber exporter in the world so and this was a colonist man they went to work they said we we can make something out of these woods and
• 02:30 - 03:00 the whole East Coast yeah was essentially a forest right you know and I I wonder sometimes if if people hear that and think my god look we took it all people have no sense of how much is left five presidents bought up 1.5 billion Acres over about 100 years Lincoln Pierce pul Adams different presidents that's a terrific place to start we need to go west you can't go west there's no roads there's
• 03:00 - 03:30 no railroad there's no path so the loggers go in first and catch hell for it yeah you guys have been catching hell ever since yeah well it it's taken a while to uh redeem ourselves I guess or change that image but um now we're essential to America and I guess really our image is most tarnished by big environmental groups anymore that's who we are
• 03:30 - 04:00 disliked by and and the most of the public doesn't understand this Mike uh but loggers they get up in the morning between 1: and 4: in the morning and they go to work in the woods and they do good honest hard work come home at night support the soccer teams this all the different things in the community they're just great honest people just like ranchers and Miners and the ones I mentioned and we're really proud of what we do
• 04:00 - 04:30 and yet how much of your job is involved with crafting an image or perpetuating an image debunking these perceptions that we're talking about because I I think on the one hand most rational people wouldn't wouldn't disagree with anything you've said it's just that we've been presented I say we the 330 million people who who depend on your industry frankly I mean ever since Joyce Kilmer right I think that I've never see a poem as lovely as a tree we like trees I love trees people fight over the trees
• 04:30 - 05:00 here trees there take the tree don't take the tree it it gets it gets very emotional you know so that's kind of what I want to dig into like what well what do you do to to balance we got to get people out of the cities and out of our schools actually come out to the woods and see what we do and it's very interesting when we do that Mike we take kids from all over the the state and
• 05:00 - 05:30 we'll we'll have a tour and we've got machines that cut down trees that are really neat they they can grab a tree and cut it down and pick it up and lay it down very safely uh very good for the environment I've seen those they're they're they're mindboggling yeah they're called f bunchers so they can cut trees and they put them in bunches and so we'll do some of that and the kids are watching whether it's third graders up through High School they'll watch this and then we'll shut the machine off and I'll say okay how many of you kids thought when the saw went through the tree the tree felt
• 05:30 - 06:00 that over half whether they're third graders or high school will raise their hand yeah I think the tree felt that and I'll say okay well how many of you think when your mom or dad mow the lawn the the grass feels a lawn mower never has a kid raise we we've got a generation that's come up and think trees are not only beautiful but they have something spiritual or different about him and so cutting a tree makes a loger not real popular it's a it's a kind of
• 06:00 - 06:30 anthropomorphism right yeah projecting a human quality onto a non-human thing I just want to show what this isy not to try not to get any audio there there we go look at this thing yeah so that's but but that's what kids think when they see that happening they're going ouch about half of them are yeah that's a that that's a that's a great machine so you see my point though right I mean people think that back in the 1800s okay The Lumberjacks went into the
• 06:30 - 07:00 woods with their double-sided blades and their feathers and their wedges and they started taking trees and okay okay right and then come the chainsaws and then comes this thing there's some parallel I think not justified necessarily but in the way of thinking with maybe uh you know drag net fishing like it just like wait a second you're taking too many it's too easy to get too many fish and now you've overfished The Fishery and people are thinking W you know it's too easy to take too many trees and now
• 07:00 - 07:30 you've denuded yeah the forests what people don't know Mike is is the enormity and the and the blessing of the forest we have so America has onethird of the country is covered in Forest 800 million Acres that's worth repeating just say it again CU a bit people might have been zoning out onethird of the United States of America is covered in Forest 800 million Acres of our forest of our our country is covered in Forest we manage that extremely well with
• 07:30 - 08:00 really uh sophisticated equipment that's very easy on the ground uh good for the environment but in spite of everything we're doing correctly America is now the number one importer and I'm going to say that again number one importer of Lumber in the world so folks that means we compared to India China any other country you want to we buy and purchase and bring in more wood than any other country in the world even even though we have this vast
• 08:00 - 08:30 resource that we could be using and exporting wood that's really one of the goals of the American loggers council is to talk to Congress and say folks why are we importing Lumber into this country why aren't we exporting Lumber using our resources wisely and and instead we're seeing so many uh millions of Acres burn up every year what are the financial realities of doing that like what's the the dollars attack to this
• 08:30 - 09:00 industry and what could it be worth if we like I liken it to energy Independence yeah why would we import natural gas or oil when we're sitting on a mother load of it I think the knee-jerk answer is well because we we we don't want to take it we don't want to wreck our land we'll let you wreck yours or some such argument right yeah that and and that is such a backward that's really a false argument if you're looking at at the global environment
• 09:00 - 09:30 because nobody no other country manages their Forest like America nobody manages their forest with the rules that we have in America and still get the things done that we do in America we keep track uh as an industry of of uh how much has grown and harvested every year and over the LA and then we do it kind of in fiveyear increments taking a look at what's going on in the last 75 years we've always grown more timber in our Forest than than it harvested in our
• 09:30 - 10:00 national forest I'm speaking of here specifically I'm sorry but again when you look at the F bunchers on mass full steam ahead that claim still holds up we still grow more than we take yes in fact right now our forests are burning and rotting twice as fast as they're growing and we are not able to go out and Salvage the products that we need to Sal AG because of tremendous environmental pressures
• 10:00 - 10:30 from groups like the Sierra Club who do not want us into the forest cutting down burned dead trees and if I were to point to one of our biggest problems that would be it our inability to get in and en use the the dead and dying wood Mike if we if we just cut onethird more of our growth and onethird of our dead and dying Timber we would be wood independent we could start to export products s but our
• 10:30 - 11:00 industry particularly I I'll just talk about California for a minute but it's a good example for the nation California in uh 1990s had about 150 Sawmills we were doing a lot of Milling we have 27 now so we've reduced our capacity from then California now Imports 80% of our wood products so you you so America is the leading importer of Lumber in the world California
• 11:00 - 11:30 Imports 80% of its wood products and we see our forest rotting and dying at our our national forest our public land at rates we've never seen before it's scandalous yeah it is it's and it it's taken personally I've been on this bandwagon for quite a while with Congress they are now talking about it in Congress like some of them are going wow we are the leading importer of lumber really and they're starting to do some things about it but it's taken years to get that just that simple
• 11:30 - 12:00 message why are we why are we not in why are we not Lumber and wood independent just like we're trying to get to be energy independent we can do it we've got and what would it save us that's the number I'm still flailing about for it it must be in the hundreds of billions of dollars our industry is a three to 400 billion doll industry we import about 25% of our lumber right now a lot of it from Canada so we're talking hundreds of billions we could we could uh make for American jobs build new Sawmills I'm
• 12:00 - 12:30 optimistic Mike that that that the that the change is coming and some of it is driven by the catastroph catastrophes we've seen and and the Palisades fired although not burning in a forest really energized Congress and I'll tell you so Congressman Westerman out of Arkansas has put together a bill called the fix our forest act which is a good title because it's broken let
• 12:30 - 13:00 yeah and he tried to get it passed in Congress last year and nobody on the Democratic side sorry folks I'm not trying to make this partisan but that's just a fact nobody on the Democratic side voted for it he reintroduced it about a month ago after the Palisades fire 64 Democrats instantly jumped on it pass Congress instantly uh Nancy Pelosi voted for it which because they've seen the horror of catastrophic fires up close I've often said that in conversations like this things simply
• 13:00 - 13:30 have to go Splat yeah unfortunately yeah and and a Splat is never pretty so sometimes it's downright catastrophic was the Palisades a Splat was Altadena a Splat is that the kind of I mean literally people need to be slapped upside the head yeah to see it and we've what what so frustrating to Foresters and loggers is we've been slapped up in Northern California 10 10 times in the last 15 years the Dixie
• 13:30 - 14:00 fire a million acres and um that was old growth too there was a lot of lot of nice Forest up there prior to that the one that really got attention for a while was the called The Paradise fire the campire that fire this was horrible and I don't want to minimize this at all it's horrible down here but that fire folks burned 18,000 homes it killed 30 five people and
• 14:00 - 14:30 burned 150,000 Acres this was just six or seven years ago was up north fire yeah that was Malibu yeah that's exactly right the and and so this one got the headlines and I think okay wow the fixar forest act suddenly got through Congress just like that and that's good well we'll use the who was it Rah Emanuel said don't let any crisis go to waste and I guess here we go but yeah well look I mean it's just another version of people are
• 14:30 - 15:00 looking around and waiting for the Splat you know sometimes maybe it's $8 $9 a gallon right maybe we can always find you know a corollary for for all of this but man it's a it's a steep price to pay do you think the dixy fire was preventable would it have been preventable had the forest been better managed the these fire these horrific fires Share three things high wind drought and low humidity every every single I don't you can look at every big
• 15:00 - 15:30 fire we've ever had they share those three things if we were to thin out trees on our landscape the chances of the moving from a ground fire to a crown fire are definitely reduced explain so so people understand and I will and and but let me just say before I explain that when you have 100 mph wind or there's nothing you can do so there's no sense of blaming anybody or forc management but under
• 15:30 - 16:00 normal conditions kind of normal wind conditions you can hold fires down okay so how do you do that if you thin out our forests what you're really looking at is okay we've got this very thick overgrown forest and we have ground fuel we have intermediate fuels that go up to the crown so what we do is we thin out the ground fuel in the intermediate fuel we call it the fuel ladder it's like each one's a rung on a ladder climbing up if we can take out that first couple rungs a lot of times fire will then just stay
• 16:00 - 16:30 on the ground it won't carry to the crowns of the trees and destroy the forest so that's our goal when we're logging is to try to thin the forest out break that fuel ladder down fuel ladder so folks are know l a d d r and then have fires stay on the ground often then we can follow a thinning project with prescribed fire and actually burn some of the fuel out in a prescriptive manner under good conditions and really make
• 16:30 - 17:00 the fire the the forest fire safe so that's that's what we're about um and in the meantime doing all that thinning makes products we need we can make wood energy out of it biomass we're making electrical energy Mike in our hometown out of wood chips we we can we can power our whole town on of this out of this power plant we've got burning wood chips to make electricity I've done show around biochar yeah and I I'm just
• 17:00 - 17:30 continually beset by these examples of that I don't I I don't even know if I can call it recycling you're using your own product to basically power your own product to make more of the product that you need to power the product that you want it's been around for several decades it's an exciting business we're very much pushing our our American loggers Council pushes biomass energy and it's simple it's simple Mike because power plants share this common thing they got to heat water to steam with
• 17:30 - 18:00 something and then the Steam runs a turbine generator set that's what spins and make things happen you can use coal you can use electrical you can use not electrical but natural gas nuclear in this case we just use wood to heat the water to steam to power the plant so it it shares a commonality with those plant but we're using wood that has no other real Market these are the small trees that don't make Lumber so it's a tremendous natural resource that instead of burning
• 18:00 - 18:30 it up in a wildfire if we thin it out ahead of time we can make a product to make the forest safer store it make the product right yeah incredible do people understand that is this is this biochar thing that the average person no the bio the biochar is making and that's another good thing you can make biochar which is an additive to to agricultural ground which which actually is you're making a charcoal product that you can put into the ground at will help it retain moisture but that's kind of a minor
• 18:30 - 19:00 industry right now a growing industry but mainly we make Lumber and we make uh different types of Pulp and Paper Products and we make biomass products to make energy and and biomass is becoming something more important for even liquid fuels so they're starting to look at ways to power aircraft I'm I'm not sure I'd get into I know if it'd be the first one in an aircraft being powered by wood burning Yeah by by uh actually a fuel
• 19:00 - 19:30 that can chemicals that come out of the wood main mainly methane point being wood is uh a tremendous resource that we're finding so many more uses for but basically we need it for lumber and I this is what my prop is right here this okay I'm going to bring this bring the prop here's the prop so how much Lumber do we use every year this is a board foot uh we use about 60 billion of these every year in America to build homes why do they call it a board foot it looks longer than a
• 19:30 - 20:00 foot yeah I know it well this one's actually 2 feet long and 6 in wide but it's 144 square in if it's 12 by 12 or however you want to configure it but this is a this is a so actually this is a board foot even though it's 2 feet long to give folks an example how much is 60 billion of these if you start stacking these end to end to the Moon which is 240,000 miles away if I remember right I think that's right this 60 billion of these back and go back and
• 20:00 - 20:30 forth in Moon about 40 times if you can get wrap your head around that that's how much Lumber we use in America every year most of which is imported well actually we do make most of it domestically but we import about a about 25% of what we need and that's ridiculous we don't need to import anything we should be making our own this one shares an interesting sticker on it says Made in New Zealand I got this at Lowe's in Ora this board came from New Zealand I cannot explain to you
• 20:30 - 21:00 how this board can be cut and milled and shipped to America cheaper than we can do it ourselves don't ask me that question because it's maddening and I don't know the answer to it but those are the kind of things we got to look at and go why is that happening why are we not doing this ourselves being as Fair as you can okay what would the what would the head of the Sierra Club say if here you were sitting here and the accusation was look you're you're affirmatively keeping us from going into
• 21:00 - 21:30 Forest to clean them out you're affirmatively saying no to all of the things that have been demonstrably shown to improve the environment which assumably purportedly is your stated goal anyway where's the where's the disconnect yeah that so if the if if the head of the share Club was sitting here they'd be sitting here in this wooden chair with this wooden table in front of him
• 21:30 - 22:00 talking into this microphone powered by electricity that's probably very possibly P powered by biomass energy by wood you would you would expose the hypocrisy of the Sierra Club which their take on this whole thing is we should not be harvesting anything in our national forests period and so I would think that would be an interesting guest to have on sometime but so I can't speak for them other than their policies are against what we do I'm missing the part
• 22:00 - 22:30 where they're saying the best thing for the forest is to leave it alone I don't I I don't understand are there any facts to support that that you're aware of No in fact the opposite is the the reality is leaving the forest alone is bad for that for that whole environment uh we we've left our forest alone and our national forest now for decades in their burning and rotting we've shut things down I
• 22:30 - 23:00 mean it the parallels between how much we've reduced our Timber Harvest through Forest management good logging and how much is now burning up it's an inverse we've shut it down to use it and now the rotting and burning is climbed dramatically and it's as clear as your the nose on a person's face and honestly Mike I I I put I put environmental groups into three categories and um the the first category would be
• 23:00 - 23:30 environmentalists that really care about things but they're willing to talk to you and think about it and when they see a tour they go you know what maybe we're wrong about this the second group are kind of like I just I call them cave people citizens against virtually everything that's kind of where they are they're just that's how they are I'm still trying to get my head around the earlier claim that a third of our country is Forest yeah and I'm reminded of like the blind guy in the elephant right he doesn't know what he's touching
• 23:30 - 24:00 right and and he just assumes that the whole of the thing is whether it's the tail or the trunk or the Tusk right and I think you know I flew across the country yesterday at a window seat I didn't see any Forest flew across the whole country what I saw was vast Wasteland right yeah you know and I get it that's you know you that's where the flight paths are but most people who stay in their Lane and in the flight path they don't see the forest yeah and and if we can't see it if we can't touch
• 24:00 - 24:30 it then it just becomes unreal to us but I it it's just worth blabbering a third of the country yeah is Forest it's incredible right and it's managed by really good people that we call loggers and that's what we're about and you know one of the things I think Mike that F folks need to know is loggers are trained they're certified they're licensed they have to take tests to even become a logger in California you you have to have you have to have 3,000
• 24:30 - 25:00 hours of experience before you can even get a a licensed Timber operator's certificate so you know one guy we I had an interesting talk one time loggers are just those knuckle draggers that walk around and they you know like cavemen that image is gone I think or it should be gone we are professional people really proud of what we do we could talk about the macro for for hours but it's it's the micro it's the individual loggers that I that I really want to pick your brain on because I do think
• 25:00 - 25:30 those guys are still subject to the same sorts of stereotypes that have been around since Paul bunan I think farmers are still subject to you know Billy Bob and the the overall is clear in the South 40 you know ha seeds mechanics are still relegated to knuckle Dragon Grease Monkeys and so forth these yeah these are very powerful images right you know um in fact I remember remember the Future Farmers of America telling me
• 25:30 - 26:00 right before I addressed 30,000 of their members back in 2008 that we're now officially referred to as the FFA because the word farmer itself had become a an impediment to their ability to recruit right so yeah I'm I'm always fascinated by these by these images and by these stereotypes and and the impact they have not just on your industry but on our country yeah now you're to kind
• 26:00 - 26:30 of further your example so even up to oh I don't know actually most of my career we're loggers we're proud of that word loggers that it has a connotation that folks I don't know what where it comes from maybe all our history but for a while they've tried to change what we do want to let's call it Timber harvesting let's call it Forest thinning let's call it vegetation management let's call it post-traumatic stress disorder not shell shocking yeah Forest Health we're Forest
• 26:30 - 27:00 health workers no we're loggers and that's what the American loggers council is all about is trying to educate folks on what we do why we do it and we're making tremendous progress what's coming Mike is wood is now being viewed by the world as the Premier Building Product you may have heard of mass Timber or cross- laminated Timber we're we're seeing around the world skyscrapers being built out of wood and whoa yeah where 30 40 Denver Colorado to Denmark
• 27:00 - 27:30 all over the world that it's it's something worth maybe doing a show on sometime it's called Mass Timber or cross- laminated Timber there's some beautiful examples of of wooden structures being built all over the world so one of the leading uh architects in the world was saying and I'll get this sort of right but he said something to the effect of the seven 17 century was the century of rock the 18th century was the century of Steel the 19th century was a century of brick
• 27:30 - 28:00 the 20th century was a century of concrete the 21st century is a century of wood we're going to go back we're and we're we're headed in the right direction is that yeah there you go that's wood even though that's been painted it looks like that's a yeah there you good job Chuck that looks good Chuck we're going to keep your around for another week brother oh man I feel so look at that Vick you got to be proud to be sitting next to a guy that's so close to being a producer that's amazing
• 28:00 - 28:30 but but the what's what's terrific is this is what's going to bring us around is when they start when the world starts to see how important wooden structures and how beautiful they are and how they can replace other types of building materials and hey folks wood is a renewable resource can I just ask the screamingly obvious question about the risk a wooden structure might pose especially in its high High RIS I
• 28:30 - 29:00 mean does the cross lamination is that some sort of fire retardant so there's a couple things will they fall over you know in an earthquake so I I've to build this stuff you got to pass all these tests so wood wooden structures high-rise when you they put them on they put them on Shaker platforms and shake them and they hold together better than concrete brick steel they kind of compete with steel firewise they're absolutely they're not uh Fireproof by
• 29:00 - 29:30 any means but if you it's like holding a match up against the log you you can't it won't start on fire right and and so these wooden beams are just solid super structures that you know if a fire got going in somebody's bedroom and that got going maybe it would but no they they've passed all the fire tests and they're extremely uh safe from a structural integrity and from fire as safe as brick yeah safer than brick when it comes to
• 29:30 - 30:00 uh earthquake okay I'm G I'll give it I'll give it to you brick won't burn but wooden you know I I I I'm going to Google up sometime as a as a as a cross-laminated Timber skyscraper burned yet I I haven't heard of one has a cross laminated or mass Timber yeah Mass timbered skyscraper burned yet yeah I mean look again that's just one of those things that that creates enough cognitive dissonance in the average
• 30:00 - 30:30 person's brain pan that they all they can do is stare at you like a cow looking at a new gate you know it's like so you're telling me the wooden like I I live up in San Francisco God help me and you know that was a wooden Town Once Upon a Time and after that earthquake that thing went up like flash paper and that seared into my sort of you know imaginary reptilian repa as a God you know it wouldn't have been that bad if been brick well these are you know these
• 30:30 - 31:00 beams are often 2 feet by 2 feet I mean they're just huge they're the the strength of steel and they you'll have to I I I I I guess I'm not prepared to convince you that no I'm I'm just trying to be look I mean yeah I know what people would think God am I you and I are in such violent agreement it would be boring I just sit here and just nod my head and go yeah but I mean look first of all you're telling me this country is a third Forest yeah second you're telling me that the future of building materials is wood yep okay yep
• 31:00 - 31:30 I can't wait to hear number three well and the number three is the still is the problem is we're the leading importer of wood in the world that's the that's the one that doesn't resonate in there and that's where we're that's what the American loggers council is working hard on so you back to yeah loggers what how are we viewed by people I just I'm sorry I just got to happen real quick yeah we're the leading importer right of wood but we basically use 75% as a country so even though we're
• 31:30 - 32:00 only importing 25% of all the wood we use we are the overall in the aggregate the leading importer of wood yeah California on the other hand is importing 80% of the of its Timber Products of its Timber Products and California by way of comparison state by state who has more wood than California uh maybe Alaska okay yeah maybe Alaska well they don't really count though there what's going on in Alaska yeah yeah Russia wants that back I'm sure so on
• 32:00 - 32:30 chat GPT it says here that as of February 2025 there have been no reports of cross laminated Timber CLT skyscrapers burning in fact CLT has been extensively tested and is recognized for its fire resistant properties when exposed to fire CLT forms a protective charred layer that insulates the inner wood allowing the structure to maintain its Integrity for extended periods charring process enabl CLT buildings to withstand
• 32:30 - 33:00 fires effectively often outperforming traditional materials like Steel in certain fire scenarios okay no that's interesting and the Charing is interesting too yeah yeah that is so that yeah there you go it forms a protective layer that oh now it won't burn so so you use fire yeah to char the wood so it won't burn yeah that's what I meant to say chuck all that stuff yeah yeah yeah that's good yeah I'll tell you what's unfortunate CLT also the the airport designation for Charlotte which
• 33:00 - 33:30 leads me to the next question wooden planes are they coming how we started right right was it the to the Future wasn't the Spruce Goose basically a a wooden plane it did not do well no yeah it was a wooden plane but uh it uh it didn't it didn't Spruce very well well or Goose when you force rhymes like that into technology the Spruce Goose you were you were tempting fate let me let me speak real quick Chuck to another excuse me Mike to another problem that we that we have
• 33:30 - 34:00 with these forest fires and that's the smoke which you saw from the top of the building looking across huge huge volumes of smoke so there's smoke and there's the Watershed effects and I want to hit them both real quick how bad is this smoke problem we all when it's we're breathing it's horrible drifting smoke they call it yeah so a UCLA uh study was just just came out and it and it looked at the fires in California the two 2020 fires which was a bad year here
• 34:00 - 34:30 was their conclusion I'm not I'll read one sentence Wildfire emissions in 2020 essentially negated 18 years of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in fact all our electric cars all this stuff we've been doing to ourselves and I'm not in a bad way but you know we're trying to improve that one Wildfire season negated it offset 18 years of all of that so smoke is worse than just a noxious we
• 34:30 - 35:00 don't like breathing it this thing really wipes out our greenhouse gas advances that we make so really something for folks to be aware of that uh another reason burning up our forest is really really bad Watershed our forests Supply about 75% of the water in California comes when I say Supply it it sheds the water it comes out of the mountains 75% of California's
• 35:00 - 35:30 water we could and and we're often short on water if we were to thin our forests each one of those trees is like a straw taking water out of the ground it's called TR evapo transpiration an average siiz pine tree Mike takes about 200 gallons not per week per day out of the ground 200 gallons a day so that much water and so when you've got millions of trees more than you need you're we're losing millions ofs of millions of
• 35:30 - 36:00 gallons a day a day yeah just being like a straw sucked right out of the crust so if we could thin some of those trees out uh make them into products reduce the fire danger we also will improve our water supply and get rid of this smoke problem I mean it's such a win-win win so yeah if you have the Sierra Club guys sitting here and go how why aren't we doing this I don't know the answer to that but we ask politicians why we're not doing this and and we're making some good traction now we go back to Washington DC every
• 36:00 - 36:30 year the American loggers Council we used to meet with staffers which we love meeting with the staff now we meet with the speaker of the house we meet with the speaker of the Senate with the head of the Senate we meet with head people they're like hey we want to hear from you guys what do we need to do different fix our forest Act is coming it's a new day coming Mike and I'm I'm optimistic about the future even though it's been a tough go before I really ask you about the daily life of a logger and ask you to make a case for a man or woman who
• 36:30 - 37:00 might want to enter that industry and before we talk about some of the recruiting uh challenges there in I I I'm still stuck a little bit on the um on the anthropomorphism that you alluded to earlier you know when half of the kids in all of those surveys indicate that they believe the tree felt pain right when it was being cut right um you know I don't know that you outgrow that I think from what I've seen that that's
• 37:00 - 37:30 that's a belief structure that metastasizes like most beliefs do and it gets you know firmly held and you see it in you know Gaia and Mother Earth and and so many examples o yeah and and and so suddenly I mean I'll get I'll catch all sorts of hell for saying it but but if if somehow the species doesn't see itself at the very top of the food chain
• 37:30 - 38:00 uh and as the proximate cause of all the uh environmental trouble in the world then that's that's when people start to push they're like no no it it is up to us we are in charge as if as if we were in charge of Pangia or Tambora or katala or or the last earthquake or the next earthquake right you know I I I I I I just mark Marv when I think about how quickly the Earth will revert to
• 38:00 - 38:30 whatever just fine means for the Earth right right it'll it'll shrug and we'll be gone well we could you know that's when you talk about we're in charge we can only be in charge of what we can really be in charge of earthquakes tornadoes hurricanes cocaa those are acts of God we can start a forest fire and we can put out a forest fire that is what's different
• 38:30 - 39:00 about fires and and we can be in charge of that Dynamic uh when a fire starts in 100 m hour wind that's that's no I'm not talking about that but we can do a lot as a society to prevent uh forest fires like Smokey the Bear said and that's where we need to go and and we need to do it in Spades we need to get serious about it and and the crisis that we've seen is driving it and and it's F yeah maybe we've been slapped finally the
• 39:00 - 39:30 time that that we're going to get it maybe but you know back to back to kids and teaching and stuff and how do they get this idea uh Vicky can tell this story better than me but we us we we often have the teachers come and we'll teach Forest Institute for teachers and we'll teach the teachers and one time we had that and this lady came up to Vicki later and she's in tears almost she and Vicki goes what's the matter she says I've been teaching these kids wrong my whole life about everything you do and about trees
• 39:30 - 40:00 and so she said man I'm going to start teaching the truth okay well we we need to do a lot more that that's a parapa right that's that that's a paretic moment in the narrative when when the protagonist realizes everything yeah he or she thought she knew right is wrong yeah yeah and that's a that's a very very hard thing to get your head around but look I would you give Vicky your mic for a sec because I want to hear from her in a
• 40:00 - 40:30 moment after I make this next Salient and Unforgettable point it it's really just repeating what you said we have to focus on the things we can do but we also have to be very realistic about the things we can't control and when you call caraka uh an act of God that's a tough cell today and in the same way you don't want to make this political I don't want to make it religious right what would have happened back when Mary Shelly was writing Frankenstein you know that was that famous summer was it katov
• 40:30 - 41:00 or was it Tambora I don't remember which one Tambora right so giant volcano huge Cloud talk about the impact of smoke yeah goes around the world basically blocks out the sun right wound up changing migratory patterns for humans in this country Indiana wouldn't be where it is but for the changing patterns of migration as a result of this volcano it plunged the the world
• 41:00 - 41:30 into this preternatural gloom and darkness it screwed up the farming Cycles the seasons poor Mary Shell's right in Frankenstein locked up in Switzerland in some crazy Hotel my question is what would what would we do today in in the wake of that W would the next 30,000 plus environmental agency to emerge be the agency committed to somehow putting an end to volcanoes that that that is so great you you mention that because I
• 41:30 - 42:00 I think of that same thing only I think of it in terms of the Dust Bowl what would we do today if that occurred where and and I remember reading interesting in religion for a minute so I remember reading about it and some pastors saw this first black they thought it was the apocalypse they thought it was the end of the world that went on for four or five years people didn't they didn't sweep things off they shoveled their their houses out what would happen if that happened today who would we blame
• 42:00 - 42:30 how would we view something like that same same uh example we would look for a cause we look for a cause because because we would fundamentally believe that because we're at the absolute top of the food chain it must be within our control right so we either caused it or it's incumbent upon us to prevent it right right so I that but you can't prevent katoa and you can't prod but the but Forest management you can prevent a
• 42:30 - 43:00 lot of things and uh you can't cure all the ALS you can't stop every fire but you can certainly make things safer people can do things with Forest management around fire that you can't do on any of these other things we're talking about earthquakes or those are going to happen and that's what makes uh Forest management firefighting and all that an interated uh very important thing for people to get and by thinning and preventing we're making products for goodness sakes you know
• 43:00 - 43:30 it's like how simple can this possibly get yeah well it's it's it's complicated because it's neither fish nor foul right it's not CAA um but because it's going to happen to your point when the winds are blowing and the humidity is low and there's drought yeah there's not much you can do yeah but during all these other times there are things you can do so you can mitigate it you can't mitigate a volcano you can't mitigate an earthquake right so that's that's why the fire is so vexing because
• 43:30 - 44:00 it feels like we ought to be able to do more to stop it yeah and surely we can we can but we can't necessarily eliminate them right and so we have to I don't know well it's like there's a humility in this right yeah it's you use the elephant thing a little while ago you know it's like eating an elephant you got to get started and we are well in we are well started at it we are we are doing great things hey man I don't want to make any trouble for you but you start talking about eating elephants you
• 44:00 - 44:30 have any idea that mail you're going to get I'm sure that's that that's on the naughty list somewhere yeah we okay yeah we're not going to eat any peta's going to get me yeah dude they they got a file on me thick as a brick um we'll come back to you in a second but your but your beautiful wife the the logger of the the lady logger of the year yeah um say something smart Vicki about education and and what's a nice girl like you doing out there with a bunch of fell bunchers and tell the tell tell
• 44:30 - 45:00 everybody the first thing you said about logging when you met me oh well Mike loves this story because when I first met him uh one of the things I said was that I really really did not like logging trucks no she said hated that's a for of intense dislike sure and and the reason behind that was because I was a single mom at the time and and I live would drive to town on a little two-lane
• 45:00 - 45:30 road and logging trucks would pass me I'd be going 55 and they would pass me on these windy roads and um the ones that were doing it it was pretty unsafe they'd throw up gravel and break my windshield and I didn't have the money to pay for it so and so people know we're talking about these impossibly long flatbeds with these giant trees a dozen of them Chained and and you you do look at that and go boy I don't want to be behind it when that chain snaps well
• 45:30 - 46:00 most most logging trucks drive really well and have great drivers I just happen to get behind a couple of um Wild Ones so so that's where my impression came from that I didn't like logging trucks and then you learned he was a logger what you guys are dating at this point or about to date or what well no you know we we actually we met at Thanksgiving and he proposed January 4th so we didn't have yeah same November J
• 46:00 - 46:30 six weeks however many weeks later I was that's borderline logging didn't really play into it except that um I didn't really want to meet someone from out of state I was living in Oregon at the time although I'm a native Californian and um so Mike's sister said um asked if I wanted to meet him and I said well if he's from California no not really and she she lied well just cuz I wasn't going to move and
• 46:30 - 47:00 and and she lied and she said um well actually I you know he has a Logging company and I think he's planning on moving his company to Oregon and there was Zero truth in that well that's that's the big lie yeah that's amazing that's what got us together but there was there was um purpose behind that because we've been married now for 26 years oh vlogging a love story so so you meet on
• 47:00 - 47:30 Thanksgiving mhm and December goes by and then you're halfway into January and you and you propose which over the phone from California over the phone cuz nothing says romance like yeah exactly honey trust me I'm down on one knee and I'm and I'm holding this amazing ring for you well here's how the conversation went so I I so we're talking I said Vicky will you marry me and there's this long pause and so I go well do you need more time to think
• 47:30 - 48:00 about it she goes no and I go well no you won't marry me or no you don't need more time to think about it and she said and I said and I laughed and I said no I don't need more time to think about it and yes I'll marry what in the world did he do in six weeks I mean was this his good timing all around or did what kind of game does this logger have people want to know you know I was not looking to get married I was not I had two young
• 48:00 - 48:30 boys and um truly um God brought us together just I could I could tell a 15minute story which I won't um that just every single step of the way it that's what it was so it just it it just felt like something bigger than than you yeah well what I what I realized um probably about 10 years later is the
• 48:30 - 49:00 reason that Mike's sister intuitively knew that we should be together is because we are so much alike and I think that we tuned into that um pretty instantly yeah so from I hate logging trucks to Lady logger of the year I knew see I I knew what was going what did she do to get lady logger of the year how does this how does this happen well she she uh and has there ever been a no she's the first one and and the president of our association said we're
• 49:00 - 49:30 going to start doing this and and Vicki's going to be the one and actually what she does she works behind the scenes she she does all sorts of work for our associations that's how she got to be lady logger of the year we put on the National Convention in Sonora California last October and she pretty well put that whole thing together she believes in what we do and she believes the in the people loves the logging community and all the things you've written about
• 49:30 - 50:00 all the all the different jobs and all the you I don't know if you've ever written about loggers but they would be right in your wheelhouse you would love us too we're just great honest hardworking people and that's Vicky saw that and she's part of it but she's always behind the scenes doing things she never had to do a she never won the Axe throw or anything like that she was just always hard hard work supporting uh our industry and and that's how that that got her that recognition and it was well deserved with his double-bladed X and his hob
• 50:00 - 50:30 nail booty goes where the timber tall hey Paul Paul bunan what kind of people today who you looking for in your industry what kind of person who really doesn't know much about your industry yeah ought to consider it and and why that's a that's a really good question because the the the industry is rapidly changing right now Mike in terms
• 50:30 - 51:00 of the equipment we use and the technology that we um employ and kids really are into technology and joysticks and different things and we're actually so the reason to get into logging not is to because you like joysticks and stuff but or Electronics but it it it's not setting chokers and chainsaws and different it's it's a it's it's a it's a a a job I think
• 51:00 - 51:30 that kids can be attracted to because uh it uses a lot of technology for sure but it still takes kids that get up in the morning and want to get to work at 2:00 or 3: in the morning and work hard and make a good living and there's a lot of those kids out there there's a lot of kids that are in college right now they come out of college with debt and they they're like really don't know what to so what we're trying to do right now is to get into high schools and show young
• 51:30 - 52:00 people that there's a honest good living out there doing logging and probably in 15 years Mike 20 years that fell buncher you just saw you'll be able to operate it right here from from La in Sonora we we we're working with a company right now that is teleoperating equipment uh there's a machine called a skitter that drags logs after the feller buncher puts it down he's operated that
• 52:00 - 52:30 skitter from uh a th000 miles away with t operating Electronics with cameras on the machine and sensors and GPS so the Tesla type stuff on the highway is coming to the logging industry that's not the reason to get in it necessarily but I think it attracts the Young Folks to go this is this is kind of cool same thing with farming right like the like the the miracle of modern agriculture has been hidden from view from a whole generation there's so much big science
• 52:30 - 53:00 there's so much incredible Tech yeah in all of it right but what what happened to you like what what was it about the industry that got you and and how did you start working in it oh that's so of course mine that that's we're going to go back about 55 years for that but so at at about 15 years old I lot of young guys that logging that age back then were started firewood cutting and so we
• 53:00 - 53:30 started a firewood business and Mark and Wayne and I started this firewood business together and we cut trees and made firewood and did all sorts of great things and and uh we weren't driving yet we were just kind of stacking it up but as soon as one day we were working and had ropes and stuff and dragging stuff up and we thought okay let's let's let's figure out how to yard this stuff up a hill so our pastor was a log or to he
• 53:30 - 54:00 came up put a block and tackle in the tree rope okay and we started dragging stuff up so we had a truck pulling stuff up and we were all working together and we'd load and unload firewood and we started a business and it was really great and uh the difference in our little business was Mark was blind and was blind from birth he would be a great person for you to write about in your book he's he's the kind of guy that you would write and and and Mark was a
• 54:00 - 54:30 logger Mark Mike was a logger and he was blind he could load and unload the truck with firewood this was back when we were kids we didn't he didn't go into logging as a profession and and we could teach him how to drive the truck uh to pull logs and say hey Mark stop and go and back up and and and it just was a a great way for us to get started because it Vicki am I hearing this right he just told me the blind guy driving the truck yeah that's what I heard well let me tell you what we used to after as soon as we got our driver's license what the what I did
• 54:30 - 55:00 with Mark the blind guy he had a Model A his dad got so we got in the model I said hey Mark let's go take that out on the highway so Mark got I said you get behind the wheel and I'll sit in the passenger side and I'll steer and off we went out onto the highway because Mark knew how to drive he knew how to shift and do all that stuff because he practiced around on his Ranch but and so Mark was a it taught me that handicapped is only in the be in
• 55:00 - 55:30 the eyes of us beholders that Mark wasn't handicap he he knew what to do but anyway that's how I got started in logging I I went from that to uh I went actually went to school got my Forester degree I'm a registered Forester also Duke right Duke yeah and uh we got a kick-ass basketball team you know that that's that's what we're and they play on a wooden floor yeah we play on a wooden floor yeah and and uh now I'm president of the American loggers Council and it's been a great ride all
• 55:30 - 56:00 in between but what's the yss all about oh that's a that's a reason that we've got in in our little Community it's a it's a group a consensus group a collaborative group where we we get these environmentalists that I say want to work with us we all get together and we say okay we had the Rimfire we don't want that anymore what are we going to do and so yeah we got together and we're going to we're going to thin the forest we're going to get things replanted we're going to no litigation we said nobody nobody up here to sue it cuz we're we're against that and and we salvaged 300 million board feet after
• 56:00 - 56:30 the Rimfire because we kept any litigants out because we all got along so it's a local group of folks that get together and make things happen and do you think that's what's going to yes is that the way forward yes for everything maybe yes absolutely things locally or where you can make things happen if you wait for what you know if we wait for Washington if we wait for Sacramento and all their bureaucratic we're going to
• 56:30 - 57:00 wait a long time but if we can get together locally we can make things happen so in talami County which is in kind of the center of the sieras we're building our seventh wood processing facility in that county we got two Sawmills still we got two biomass plants we got a wood shavings plant we're building things because our community gets it and we get together and I'll give you I I'm going to digress if I can take a little more time of what how this can work the other way and and and when an environmental a big extreme group
• 57:00 - 57:30 gets in the way there was a project called Toya Ridge down on the Los Padres National Forest Santa anawin country and they said this little community of about 3,000 called Mount Pino said we want to build a fuel Brak around our community we want to clear it so we don't burn up we got about 3,800 homes here we want to be safe how big is a fuel Break by the way so people understand how wide yeah by the way usually they're shaded so it's not just a clearcut they you thin it out pretty aggressively in this case
• 57:30 - 58:00 I think this was a 300 uh foot fuel brake which is going to work in most things not a 100 m hour wind you can't okay so the Mount Pinos community group got together says we want to do this the forest service said yep let's do it the the the the Kern County Fire Department supported them they put it out for scoping it's called so everybody could weigh in on it let's move it forward gets ready to go Inc comes the center
• 58:00 - 58:30 for biological diversity out of Tucson Arizona and says no no no you're not going to do that because you're going to endanger the Condor and it's in a roadless area really okay we'll go to court two years later this District Court says yep you're good to go now Center for biological diversity we're going to take it to the night circuit they sue it again took six years to get this fuel brake built Mike and luckily there wasn't a fire or or I don't know you would I don't know
• 58:30 - 59:00 what would have happened but it would have burned the place down is what would have happened that's an example of how it doesn't work when an extreme group that doesn't live in the community comes and says we don't like that for whatever reason I'll tell you what is not good for the Condor yeah is a windmill yeah have you seen that have you seen these the the condors and the and the the kites big birds just flying yeah straight into them all of the time yeah
• 59:00 - 59:30 there's lots of documented bird kills the the the spotted owl is probably known more than the Condor after lots of studying really took a lot of studying they figured out the scientists what's killing the spotted owl is Wildfire killing their nest they their and The Bard owl which is a bigger owl that actually kills the spotted owl eats it eats or eggs it's not logging it's it's the lack
• 59:30 - 60:00 of logging that's killing this these animals off because where forests are burning up so these are all the kind of things the American loggers Council and others try to get up to Congress we're going in another month and we we we bring these facts to people and they go you know what we're starting to hear you here and Westerman heard us and he's now got to fix our forest act and I'll tell you listeners it's through the house we got to get the Senate to to pass it it's sitting at the Senate doorstep right now fix our forest act fix our for when the
• 60:00 - 60:30 vote do you know that we that's got a schedule a vote the Senate you know they they they have a few committees and so we just need to call our Senator we got two senators here say folks this is a good thing push it through I know that you've obviously got a clear and present bias but do you liken this and the importance of this topic to energy Independence oh ABS what a
• 60:30 - 61:00 great comparison okay I'll just we don't want to talk politics I know but the Trump I don't care either the TR it was a trump Administration that said look we can be energy independent and he got us there in about four years we started the Keystone Pipeline and did things that said made sense we have more energy in this country than any other country same thing with wood products yes we just need the administration to go this is really important we can be wood
• 61:00 - 61:30 independent I don't want to be wood independent I want to export wood Mike I want us to export our wood and our technology I'll tell you this as an interesting fact half the wood in the world is still used for heating and cooking there are you know you've seen it in National Geographic these ladies that carry wood on their back for five miles because they've denuded Cambodia or Ethiopia or whatever we need to be helping those countries with wood products and Technology on how to get things going they've got to get through
• 61:30 - 62:00 their own industrial or right I mean they've got to get they're burning dung and wood they've got to get to coal and oil and then gas and then maybe we can talk about Hydro or solar or wind or Fusion or fishing yeah I but we need to be able to show up to those countries say hey folks said we've got wood for sale we we've got pellets wood biomass whatever but no we're importing it because we are shutting our industry
• 62:00 - 62:30 down and that's we're making a big push on that and it's working we're but it's going to take a while it's like turning the aircraft carrier yeah Vicki did he forget anything are you sitting there going gosh if only you would have mentioned blah blah blah that's a good question because she usually CU your last chance I'm about to look into this bag of Swag you brought me and unwrap the treats you know I got a question though oh God oh dear yeah uh my question is you know I know that you said like it all grows on
• 62:30 - 63:00 trees right this wood grows on trees the biomass can help us with energy we can build more with wood and I've seen cross cutting like in in Washington state I've I've driven past a section where they take out like an acre here and it's like a checker board it's like how long does it take from the time you clear that piece of a checkerboard till it grows high enough big enough that you can clear it again yeah that's that's a great question so uh it takes a little
• 63:00 - 63:30 longer in the West in in than it does in the South and so in the Southern United States you can have a new crop of trees ready for Harvest in about 25 to 30 years it's it grows quicker here it's about 50 years but in in the meantime you can do some intermediate cutting thinning it out getting some products as you thin that and then it's ready to harvest say in 50 or 60 years and it has to be repl pled we don't we can't we don't cut anything and not replant it
• 63:30 - 64:00 that's a law but it's of course we want to because that's our business that's our livelihood but I don't know if that so that get the answer yeah yeah that answers my question well it's it's a slightly different analogy than the energy one it's more like Fisheries you know you can over fish and if you don't take care to not do that if you don't let fishing game do what they do well then you're just shooting your own feet off right obviously it's right you guys are motivated I would think yeah by the
• 64:00 - 64:30 same self-preservation what' you bring me oh we brought we my favorite things in the front and it's a challenge coin right right in the very if you turn it around in the front pouch way in the front but I want to can I say something while you're working with zippers I can't stop okay I I want to say that we we've got some good things going with the forest service too even though you know forest service has been we've had some problems over the last couple decades we the American loggers Council just signed a memorandum of understanding with a
• 64:30 - 65:00 forest service that's promoting our Timber industry new markets and logging that's a big deal read about that a big deal and and it's exciting and it's showing I think where the future is people are getting it nice so that's the whatever that is that that's a that's a lapel pin and that's your challenge coin down there that that's a lapel pin yeah yeah yeah that's how big a lapel you think I got well that's we yeah we really want you to see what's we want to be noticed yeah that's great American loggers great while you're looking through that Vicki's got a
• 65:00 - 65:30 question now go Vicki well actually just a statement that if we were really wisely managing our forests and and getting our Timber off of our forests one thing I think that's important for people to realize is that doesn't cost the treasury our government money that will bring in a lot of money to the treasury MH um as well as making the industry healthier
• 65:30 - 66:00 and providing jobs well that's a great point I was just at CPAC I was just in the belly of the beast in in DC and I saw Elon on stage with a giant Chainsaw the metaphor is not lost you know this is not the time to ask the taxpayers to step up to do a thing yeah or the feds it it whatever you're on about it has to be self-funding it has to be self-perpetuating right yeah yeah feels like it anyway and I'm I'm I'm so glad you mentioned that cuz that's a really
• 66:00 - 66:30 good point this can make money as we're doing the work right this the greatest bag of schwag I've ever got on the podcast this is like I got this playing cards yeah yeah chicken ranch playing cards yeah yeah you want to explain that well that's where we had our convention at the Chicken Ranch Casino Sonora Sonora California yeah oh that's a really good book that that if to why would anyone cut a tree down right this is yeah look at that yeah but it's but it answers the question in a very positive way when it's over yeah it starts out
• 66:30 - 67:00 like all right terrific to Chuck there's one for you too I got a box I got a bag as well well that's right you already interviewed him for the podcast this is great good good this stuff all comes in handy nuts good yeah these are the best ones there all right final thoughts um that hat looks good on you by the way that's that that's that's a good- looking hat my my head was made for hats it really was don't yeah keep that one
• 67:00 - 67:30 all right yeah um why is chopping wood so satisfying what is it I've thought a lot about it and read a lot of poetry about it got my own thoughts but I'm just wondering yeah I I think I think because uh you see instant results you see something made quickly and that's why I think it's satisfying that's what Einstein said people love cutting wood because they like to see instant results yeah and Henry Ford said uh and oh that makes me feel really good CU I I didn't
• 67:30 - 68:00 you just ripped off Einstein you didn't know it I didn't even know it yeah I mean I'm not you have any idea your husband had a brain the size of a redwood was amazing yes he is incredible anyway sorry Ford said uh oh chop chop your own wood it'll warm you twice yeah yeah yeah there you go I I I'll leave the listener with this my earliest memories are of block and tackle and feathers and wedges and watching for a while watching and then
• 68:00 - 68:30 accompanying my dad and my pop back into the woods behind our our little house it about 50 acres we didn't own it it was the states but nobody could develop it yeah and our house was heated by wood stoves yeah and watching those two men go back there and pick a tree and then fell it and I mean they played it like it was a game show right it was like here I mean they and just the the thrill they got from watching it fall where they wanted it right and then the chainsaws and then the cutting and then back to the wood pile and then the
• 68:30 - 69:00 splitting and then it was just um something Primal and practical yeah and and there's some Artistry about it oh my God such a right way to you know go with the grain and how to yeah it it's it gets in your blood I can see how it would happen well it's in and so in the American loggers Council it's in the blood of about 60,000 of us and and and I think the timber timber industry is going to grow and and uh we're going to have more loggers we're getting younger loggers in and it we've been through
• 69:00 - 69:30 some tough stuff and but better times ahead you watch let's get together in 10 years and we'll talk about Mass Timber all right I do have one yeah poor Chuck I know dud I'm sorry we're over I'll be all right go ahead um is there uh a school an academy a learning type of situation that that people enroll in in order to get into your industry if so what and where very good they're just starting up so Shasta College in California has logging equipment and
• 69:30 - 70:00 they're working with Sarah Pacific Industries Sarah Pacific's giv them 30,000 Acres they have the equipment state-of-the-art stuff fell bunchers and they're they said kids come on get into our program we'll it's a school cert certified program not a foure school no it's a it's a it's weeks a few weeks or say a couple months of training what's a cost I don't even know if there is a cost to tell you the truth it's a junior oh there's no there isn't cost but it's Hilo is the name of the
• 70:00 - 70:30 program heavy yeah heavy equipment logging operation it's well it's a junior college I I don't know if there's a college it's it's it's very inexpensive well Google it guys Hilo if this sounds like it's interesting College Shasta College and you know my Foundation is all about work ethic scholarships for vocations that don't require 4-year degree this is such an important space and I'll make sure that it's indicated on our we're currently in the midst of uh an enrollment period now
• 70:30 - 71:00 so I mean I I'm I'm happy to do what I can to call some attention to awesome to this how I mean where's the need right now in terms of Manpower and labor how many loggers could be hired if they showed up ready to work and good to go that's I don't know that I don't know the number for sure but everybody coming out of that school gets placed instantly let me put it that way jobs are waiting for these folks and it's not only it's not just logging and
• 71:00 - 71:30 it can be sawmilling like at this at the Sawmills they're looking for people I know our local sawmills you the guys that hold for pizza signs and say they had for log we need people they were holding signs up in the corner like we'll pay $25 an hour apply here it's it's interesting there's a lot of need in the timber industry not only in logging but all the way through power plants Sawmills it's a great we can get into it look it's it's everywhere yeah it's our submarine base it's our automotive industry every major industry
• 71:30 - 72:00 that I know of yeah is is just staring recruiting right in the face and pulling out the stops yeah I'll tell you this man if there's if there's peanuts and ball caps and notepads and books and everything else in the way of you know inducements uh in okay thank you so much for making the time Vicki congratulations you lady logger of the Year thank you both for coming coming by good luck our our pleasure thank you Mike really really fun yeah thanks like what
• 72:00 - 72:30 heard won you please subscri well I hate to beg and I hate to but please pretty freaking please please please subcribe live